Decongesting Bangalore: Commuter rail gains traction

Taking a long-term and holistic approach to not just decongest Bangalore’s roads, but to discourage migration of people to the city from peripheral districts, the Rail India Technical and Economical Services (RITES) has presented commuter rail system (CRS) as an effective transport option.

The RITES, in its report submitted to the directorate of urban land transport, said that although most city planners do not look at the rail system as a solution to its problems, or consider it in their plans, “the inherent advantages and large potential of railway as a suburban/urban transport system cannot be ignored.”

While countering the traffic problems in Bangalore, CRS tries to address it by taking rail to neighbouring districts, while Metro concentrates only at commuting in the core areas of the city, the report said.

According to the report, urban planning has the mechanism to disperse population and ensure that no location gets densely populated beyond manageable levels. “While the first step towards this is building roads, beyond certain distance it becomes impractical as they take unacceptably high journey times. The CRS has major potential in this regard.”

Although the Bangalore Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (BMRDA) has investment plans to the tune of Rs73,300 crore up to 2031 (according to its structural plan, which is yet to be approved by the government), this does not include rail.
Metro vs CRS

CRS will have 3.3 times the capacity of Metro. The capacity of a broad gauge coach is 26% more on account of width alone. Length of CRS trains is also much more than that of Metro, which is fixed at six coaches.

A suburban train can have up to 27 coaches. A metro train usually runs 20 trains per hour. With only six paths being cleared every hour, a suburban rail will be able to reach the same capacity of Metro.

While Metro costs about Rs250 crore per km for an elevated track and at least Rs400- Rs500 crore for underground tracks, a commuter rail costs just about Rs15 crore to Rs20 crore.