Metro Rolling Stock Specs

Have not gone through the specs. Saw that it was a 4.4MB file which I don't want to download now. I think they need to rethink the 3 coach rake plan. By the time Namma Metro comes online, I would not be surprised it petrol prices are closer to Rs.100/litre than to Rs.60/litre. Public transport will be in great demand and a 3 coach rake might not meet the load requirements. Srivathsa

Tarle, The Singapore MRT coaches had the following configuration 2seats - Door - 9 - Door - 9 - Door - 9 - Door - 2. Makes 31 seats on each side - 62 sitting. Each seat - 0.4m + each door 2-2.5m (say 2.25m). Total inside lenght - 12.4+9m - 21m + vestibule - say 1.5m on each side - total 24m length of a coach. Maybe my seat width assumed is a bit more For each set of seats - assume 3 can stand - 186 standing At each door - 30 - another 120 standing. At vestibules another 20 (10 on eacg side). Total capacity of the coach - 62+186+120+20 = 388 - say 360 people. Not far off from Namma Metro. I think our friends have assumed that Indians will not be averse to a bit more crowding. So the 1000/train number is not far fetched. 6 coach rakes would take it to 2000. That I believe is the end-state design and platforms have been made for this. Will try and source some data for this. At 3 mins intervals - we are looking at 20000 in a direction. Assuming a turnover of 1.5 (people get on and off along the way) we can say that 30000 passengers can move in one direction during Peak Hour. Let's say 4 hrs of peak in the morning and 4 hrs in the evening. 8 hrs along one of East-West and one of North South during the day. So 2*8*30000 = 480,000 passengers during peak hours. 15 hrs of non peak along 4 directions @ 5 trains per hour - 500 per train - 15*4*5*500 - 150,000. If routes have been designed well then coach turnover can increase and so will ridership. Total ridership planned for 600,000 to 650,000 with this coach design and non-peak frequency. Not ambitious enough! Moving it to a 6 coach rake design can move peak to 960,000 people. Non-peak will be constrained by demand and not coach capacity. Demand will be influenced by peoples williningness to wait 15 mins for a train. (I don't like the 15 min non-peak hour interval. It needs to be capped at 8-9 mins). Bombay suburban has 9 coach rakes on slow trains and 12 coach rakes on many fast trains. Seat design is very bad and inequitable - 72 people sit in ridiculous (relatively speaking) and 250 people are crushed together. They need to reconfigure the inside of coaches. Side comment.