Mumbai Selects Monorail Builder

Bangalore is waiting for a proper Muhurtham to select the operator. Many operators like KL,Scomi and metrail are giving presentation.Operators making statements to media about their plans, but, nothing finalized yet. It is still on RITES map. We have to raise this question during the meeting with Sivashailam.

Suhas, Government will not invest in monorail. It will be a BOOT or a PPP model. If metro needs to be constructed in the alignment of mono, another 4,000 - 5,000 crores are needed and again the saga of land acquisition. The cost of the Metro depends more on the land acquisition rather than the implementation and equipment itself. Delhi Metro construction was started way behind in 2002 and hence the average cost per km is less. Bangalore Metro will be more expensive, budgeted at 3,500 crores in the beginning, increased to 6,000 crores and now to 7,500 crores for 50 kms at around 150 crores per km. Also, the roads which RITES has surveyed for monorail like the Kattriguppe main road is very narrow and with gradients with high density of traffic. Underground Metro would be too expensive, elevated Metro needs more lands and the PHPDT is not viable for the Metro. It is mainly used as a feeder to the Metro and local commuting such as Kattriguppe to Gandhibazaar. Monos doesn't need too much land as it is lighter. Modern monos carry like 110 passengers per car and the number of cars can vary from 2-6. Japan has implemented mono successfully in many of its cities which is not talked much and people say mono is used only for amusement parks and airport transfers. Many Saudi countries are going forward with monorails. Here is the link on the carrying capacity of Hitachi Monorails: http://www.hitachi-rail.c... Mono, Tram and BRTS mode of transport is always debated. We need right of the way mode of transport either in the form of Metro or Mono ASAP which can also jump signals!! BRT is most sustainable, but cannot jump signals.

I have spent many hours trying to get a sense of the costs, it sometimes doesnt make sense. The DMRC chief actually says that the METRO cost will come down from hereinforwards and quotes a cost of Rs110 cr/km. For chennnai Metro the stated cost is Rs 80 cr/km for elevated METRO. Which makes it much cheaper than the Mumbai monorail http://www.hinduonnet.com... But if the ground footprint of Mono is much smaller than an elevated METRO, yes I can accept that as an advantage. Do we have relevant numbers for the footprint of each of these ?

Suhas

We have been hearing that a detailed proposal for monorail is ready for Bangalore, and is being pitched to the maize of public bodies and agencies in the city. We should hear the details very soon in newspapers, or perhaps here itself.