Monday, April 16, 2012

It's tramway, not metro rail


It's tramway, not metro rail
B.V. Shiv Shankar, Times of India, Apr 15, 2012.
HYDERABAD: Is Hyderabad going to have a metro rail or a glorified toy train chugging through the city at a snail's pace? In a surprising declaration before the AP high court, Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited (HMRL) Managing Director,  N V S Reddy said that though the project is named as metro rail, in reality, it is a tramway. This was stated in the writ petition filed in the high court on April 9 seeking the vacation of the stay imposed by a single bench of the court last month on the works on the stretch between Ameerpet and Jubilee Hills of corridor 3 (Nagole-Shilparamam) of the 'metro rail' project.

"Hyderabad Metro Rail project is a tramway and that merely the project is named as metro rail will not cease to be a tramway," N V S Reddy said in the petition. What Reddy meant was that instead of a rapid mass transport that is supposed to be a panacea for the city's growing traffic problem, what actually taking shape is a low potential tramway.
"With the advancement of technology, it is possible to bring a tramway at an elevated level and it was valid because the service is only meant for intra-city traffic unlike a rail system that is meant for inter-city long-distance traffic," N V S Reddy said in the writ petition. HMRL's appeal seeking the vacation of the stay is slated to be heard by the division bench of Chief JusticeMadan B Lokur and Justice P V Sanjay Kumar on April 17.

Experts feel a tramway can never match a metro rail in terms of handling traffic load and speed. While the metro rail - a rapid mass transit system -has a maximum speed of 120 km per hour and an average speed of 80 kmph, a tramway can travel at a maximum speed of 40 km per hour and will have an average speed of a mere 20-25 kmph!

As far as the traffic capacity is concerned, a metro train can handle 50,000 passengers per hour per direction (PPD) at peak hours, while a tramway's capacity is just 4,000 passengers per hour per direction. Normally, a tramway is suitable for short-distance public transport carrying low passenger load with low speed and coal mines where the services are used to transport workers from one side to other and in amusement parks.

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