High speed trains in India – is it time?

It takes a little more than seventeen hours to cover a distance of 1,454 Km between Kolkata and Delhi, at an average speed of 85 Km/hr. This is the fastest you can travel on India’s trains. Compare this to the 310 m/hr (almost 500 Km/hr) speed of the recently unveiled bullet trains of China and we know how far behind Indian rail infrastructure is. A China style high speed train can reduce the journey time between Delhi and Kolkata to a mere three hours from the present seventeen. People will save time and can be more productive. Business and manufacturing will benefit from high speed connectivity. Goods and people will travel faster. Time advantage currently enjoyed by the civil aviation sector will be challenged and will lead to strong competition between the airlines and high speed trains, ultimately benefitting the end users, i.e. the passengers. India’s economy needs high speed surface connectivity which will boost its growth even further. Is it then time for India to jump on to the high speed train projects?

The answer to the question lies in lessons learnt from similar projects around the world, the most recent being that of our neighbour China. China embarked upon the high speed train project in the 90s with the first proposal to build a high speed train connection between Beijing and Shanghai. The line was finally opened in June 2011. The first high speed train however, was the Beijing – Tianjin section, opened on 1, August 2008. According to official Chinese media reports the country plans to build a total of 25,000 Km of high speed tracks till 2020, with a total investment of $ 300 billion. China spent $ 50 billion on its high speed network in the year 2009 alone (Indian railways earned a total of $ 20.7 billion in fiscal 2011-12). Once completed China will have the world’s largest high speed rail network. A report by CNN money in August 2009 goes a step further and says that the Chinese network will be bigger than rest of the world’s high speed networks all put together.

India in the railway budget for the year 2012-13 has announced high speed initiatives. In his budget speech the railway minister said that Indian railways have decided to construct high speed passenger train corridors, where trains will clock speed between 250 and 350 km/hr. The minister sighted feasibility studies being underway or completed for various sectors including Pune – Mumbai – Ahmedabad, Delhi – Agra – Lucknow – Varanasi – patna and Delhi – Jaipur – Ajmer – Jodhpur sections. No time frames have been promised but the government has decided to go ahead with the high speed corridors. But what does this means in realistic terms? Will there be takers for such a product? Let’s take a look at three different high speed train networks in China, Japan and Europe.

High speed train connections
Sector	Distance (Km)	Fare	Indian equivalent
Beijing – Shanghai	1,228	Yuan 555 (INR 4,476)	Delhi – Raipur 1,164 Km
Tokyo – Aomori	713	Yen 16,870 (INR 10,355)	Delhi – Bhopal 701 Km
Paris – Frankfurt	572 Km	Euro 70 (INR 4,753)	Bangalore – Hyderabad 573 Km

It’s not very difficult to compare the fares high speed trains charge elsewhere in the world to what passengers pay in India (both on trains and flights).

The idea of having high speed trains is good but its time has not arrived in India. A huge investment in a relatively shorter period of time, strong opposition to acquisition of land and high fares to get a decent return on investment are big deterrents to the idea. High speed trains have totally different technical requirements as compared to conventional trains. The tracks are put on special sleepers, which can handle carriages moving at high speed. The tracks themselves have to meet specified design standards like having long rails with virtually no curvature. Platforms might need redesigning to suit the coach design and so on. It is not possible to run high speed trains on the present tracks. New tracks will have to be built and for that more land has to be acquired. This will be an extremely expensive (if the new land acquisition bill becomes a reality) and time consuming process. Cost of capital is moving up with global economy in choppy waters. In the past year itself 70% of China’s high speed projects have either being temporarily suspended or delayed. This is not a healthy sign. A February report in the Telegraph published in the UK suggest that though freight operation made a profit of 70 billion Yuan the passenger service failed to make any money. In Europe high speed trains face stiff competition from both low cost airlines (Ryanair and EasyJet) as well as from legacy carriers. So what is that India can look for to improve its train connectivity?

Runs fast but burns a hole in the pocket faster

The ideal solution will be to upgrade the existing infrastructure to double the actual speed from 85 Km/hr to around 160 Km/hr (some sections like Delhi – Agra already have tracks suitable for this speed). Signalling is one of the major issues which stifle speed. Poor tracks condition is another problem. Ministry of railways has been dragging its feet on the issue of infrastructure upgrade for a long time. The railway ministry should take steps to completely overhaul the signalling system across the network, improve track conditions by replacing short rails with long rails and use of mono-block concrete sleepers instead of wooden sleepers. These changes would increase speed across the network.

Changes are also required in the rolling stock. Rajdhani trains have been provided with the new light weight carriages but majority of long haul and short haul trains still use heavy carriages making it difficult to achieve high speed. High power engines and shorter train length can increase the speed to a large extent (some trains like Kalka – Howrah have between 21 – 24 carriages). Given the vast size of India the train tracks criss-cross country side and big cities on most of their stretches. Protecting the tracks from trespassing is essential for safety of the people as well as for the train operations. Fatal accidents happen every year at level crossings across the country. Eliminating the level crossings and providing proper fencing around densely populated areas will ensure smooth operation and high speed at all times.

Another common dimension usually missed out while discussing high speed train is bypassing the smaller cities and communities en route. To maintain consistent high speeds the trains will have to make as few stops as possible. With most small cities ignored, the benefits from high speed infrastructure too will bypass the communities. On the other hand an overall upgrade of the network will bring benefits to entire country. 

Ministry of Transport – Time for a paradigm shift

India has five different ministries looking after the transportation sector. The ministries of civil aviation, planning (advisory role), railways, shipping and transport & highway together are responsible of various transport infrastructures in the country. Having defined work areas these ministries should have been owners of efficient pieces of infrastructure. On the contrary transport infrastructure in India is painfully slow. Despite having one of the largest rail networks in the world, fastest trains in India clock only 100 kilometres an hour. Major national highways narrow down to two lanes on most stretches. Total expressway length is 200 km only. Inland waterways are hardly used and major ports are chocking. Average dwell time at major ports in India is 4.3 days as compared to twelve hours in Singapore and ten in Hong Kong. For a country which is still growing fast and spans thousands of kilometres, crippling infrastructure is the last thing it needs.

The future lies in this

In October 2001, a task force on integrated transport policy submitted its report to the planning commission. The report concluded that there is an urgent need to shift to an integrated transport policy. It also said that emphasis has to shift from being just a transport service provider to include modern technology and upgrade the existing systems. However, almost a decade after the report was submitted India is nowhere close to any such thing called integrated transport. Integration of transport is an extremely lengthy process and involves many stake holders. In case of India there are not just stake holders but diverse political interests as well.

Today most of the infrastructure projects run independent of other modes of transport or in competition with each other. India is currently undertaking two ambitious highway projects, the golden quadrilateral (connecting all four major metros of the country, i.e. Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata with each other) and the North South – East West corridor. Among these two projects, north western and north eastern arms of the golden quadrilateral will run parallel to the dedicated freight corridor (another project in progress). Warehousing, distribution centres, logistics centres, inland container depots, etc if integrated with each other can give much needed boost to the economy. With multiple agencies and lack of coordination this opportunity has been missed so far in India.

The need of the hour is a strong political will in shape of an integrated transport policy and a ministry of transport to implement it. Five different ministries with their own budgets, targets and resources are incapable of suggesting or implementing a uniform policy. The umbrella ministry should have all four ministries as departments with policy flowing in from the top. With a common budget, policy and vision, conceptualising and implementing an integrated transport policy will be easier than in present circumstances.

The role of a common transport ministry will not end with the integrated transport policy. With growing economy and better trade relations with neighbouring countries the scope of work will expand from national integration to that of the greater SAARC area. India is already in discussions with Bangladesh to establish first of its kind transfer corridor from Eastern India to North Eastern India. Such projects can easily be integrated with inland and maritime routes. Upgrading the railway infrastructure in North Eastern India and Bangladesh can further integrate the region and boost the economy.

Immediate gains can be reaped with help of an integrated transport policy and a well planned network of logistic centres. Wastage of perishable goods can be minimised and eventually brought to near zero. Artificial inflation of fruits and vegetables due to poor supply can be averted with a fast and efficient transport network. Cost of transportation of non urgent items can be significantly reduced by shifting them to cheaper modes like inland water ways. Inter port connectivity can greatly reduce shipping time. The benefits can be reaped, but to do so we need to engage in destructive construction. Merging four major ministries into one is a Himalayan task but the rewards are equally fantastic.