Bharat Rakshak

Monorail, Metro, BRT's we are finally upgrading our urban areas after more than a decade of negligence. However will not this drive to more urbanization with its own pitfalls? And what about high-speed inter-city transport? Delhi's proposed RRTS system is the only one that is being considered currently. There are other corridors like Bombay-Pune, Bombay-Surat/Ahmadabad, Chennai-Coimbatore/Pondicherry/Madurai, Bangalore-Mysore/Chennai, etc which come to ones mind which seem fit for a RRTS.

Ask me. I can almost never book a train ticket from Dilli to Jammu even 10 days in advance.

Strangely, Mumbai's infra elements seem to keep coming out of China. First, BEST decided to go in for King Longs (badged Cerita) when everyone and his uncle was buying Tata-Marcopolo, AL and (India-built/assembled) Volvo B7RLEs. Heck, even private operators down south have given up on King Longs, so the decision was a bit baffling. At least NMMT went the Volvo way thankfully.

Mumbai's metro rolling stock too is coming out of China now instead of BEML or (again Indian-built/assembled) Bombardier ones.

BTW Reliance's reliance on Chinese stuff can be seen across the board. Chinese equipment for power generation, EPC, telecom equipment and now Metro Rail rakes. Apparently they are the single largest importer of Chinese made power equipment in India.

ADAG's 'success' seems to be built on Chinese made goods nowadays.

The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking seems to be regretting spending more than Rs 200 crore on China-made air-conditioned Kinglong buses. Members of the BEST committee, during their fortnightly meeting on Thursday, discussed how commuters had complained that these
purple buses were breaking down frequently.

There are 284 Kinglong buses in the BEST’s total fleet of 4,700. They were among the 1,000 buses the BEST bought under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

“We have received complaints that the driver of these buses halt before the start of the flyover and asks commuters to get down,” said Dilip Patel, a member of the BEST committee. Sunil Ganacharya, another member of the BEST committee, said, “Commuters say they are often asked to push the bus up flyovers.” There have also been cases of Kinglong buses catching fire or experiencing engine failures or problems with the radiator or clutch, BEST sources said.

Beat this. Train tickets from Bengaluru to Kerala have got filled up the day when reservations started (basically two months before the date of journey) . Last year there was a huge wail from people when they found that reservations moved into REGRET state within half a day.

The Tamil Nadu government on Friday announced that under the second phase of the Metro Rail, a project study would be taken up to establish links between Moolakkadai-Thirumangalam, Moolakkadai-Thiruvanmiyur and Luz-Poonamallee through Iyyappanthangal.

In his address to the State Assembly, Governor Surjit Singh Barnala said the earlier project was progressing at a fast pace and the government was taking efforts for its extension up to Tiruvottiyur at an estimated cost of Rs 3,001 crore.

A long time ago, in this very thread, I posted this bit about Mumbai's decision to go in for PRC buses when everyone else was going in for better/proven models by others.

And now comes the news that BEST is having a load of trouble with its Chinese bus fleet.
BEST unhappy with its 248 Kinglong buses


Is it time to say we told you so? Thankfully BEST seems to have learnt from its mistakes and the recent addition of Volvo 8400s to the fleet seems to be the final nail in the coffin for the KLs there. Good riddance.

After bagging contract for the country’s first monorail in Mumbai, construction major Larson & Tubro (L&T) is now eyeing a similar project in Gujarat.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) to this effect is likely to be signed at the upcoming Vibrant Gujarat 2011 Summit, state government sources said.

“L&T has expressed interest in a Rs 5,000 crore monorail project in Gujarat. The company will sign an MoU for the same during Vibrant Gujarat,” said company sources.
After tasting success with the Bus Rapid Transport System (BRTS) in Ahmedabad, the Gujarat government has been working on a wholly-elevated metro rail project between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar at an estimated cost of Rs 7,000 crore. The state government has also set up a Rs 200-crore company for execution of the Metro Link Express for Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad (MEGA), apart from roping in Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to prepare a detailed project report (DPR) for the metro rail project.

With an average 50,000 people commuting between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar daily, the project is expected to ease rising congestion on the route.

During his last Budget speech, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had proposed to grant project import status to monorail projects for urban transport at a concessional basic duty of 5%

Meanwhile, L&T and Scomi Rail of Malaysia are likely to finish the first portion of the first line of the Mumbai Monorail, contracted by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA).

Our babus continue to ignore his inventions, while the world honours the technology man who patented an anti-collision device, made the Skybus and more recently the Gravity Power Towers

Rajaram Bojji, former chairman of Konkan Railway, never got a chance to implement his revolutionary Skybus project which would have provided inexpensive, air-conditioned mass transport without land acquisition! The idea, backed by 17 patents, was abandoned by Indian authorities despite a successful demonstration in Goa. But Mr Bojji, who is better known as B Rajaram, moved on to new research and has kicked off the
new year with a bang.

Automated People Movers and Transit Systems (APM-ATS) has accepted Mr Bojji's work on Gravity Power Towers (GPT) as a peer-reviewed paper to be presented at its 13th International Conference on 24 May 2011. The biannual international meeting is being held in Paris for all those involved in the development of fully-automated people movers and urban transit systems around the world.

A major fault I see in the metro plans is a lot of middle class people travel from say Avadi to Tambaram, OMR to Avadi, OMR to Tambaram, OMR to Poonamalee.The new metro in no way services the needs of such persons.

I guess the Metro will go through Ambattur(Not far from Avadi) as per the below article.
Focus on Metro Rail's place in transportation grid

Not even if section from Overhead MRTS to underground system, there is some space near the right turn to Velacherry, granted it cause traffice congestion right now.

OMR is getting worse by the day, there has to be a public transport solution for it.

2) No direct connectivity from Avadi- Ambattur to Tambaram/Vandalur via Ponnamalee on the Outer ring road alignment- Lots potential Metro users need this connectivity

Finally!
Looks good. Have to wait and watch how people respond. I've heard fares are not low.

The Chennai Metro Rail has awarded the Rs 449.22-crore contract for design and construction of track works to a joint venture of L&T and Alstom.

According to a press release from Chennai Metro, the joint venture of Larsen & Toubro, Alstom Transport, SA, and Alstom Projects India has bagged the tender for design, construction of track work in viaduct, tunnel, underground, and depot in corridor I & II.

The track work consists of 104 route km, including 15 route km in the depot at Koyambedu, to be completed in four years.

Namma metro bengaluru

Those services are also supposedly loss-making despite the load.

I pay Rs 10 for 2KMs on a non-a/c bus

Contrast all of this with the local suburban services provided in Mumbai and you can see why consumers will feel justified in feeling conned by such projects that are also funded in part by our taxes.

Have to agree with you here. Compare fares with Chennai MRTS:
Kasturbai Nagar to Lighthouse; Distance 10KM; Fare Rs 5. Non AC.

^
They have put up signboards at KR circle to take diversion as tunneling work is in progress. But I think Majestic area will be the last to be taken up. I don't dare to imagine what a mess it will be when they finally dig up majestic.Apparently, they have planned for a superstructure at the central bus stand.

The eagerly-awaited Namma Metro train, which is scheduled for commercial operations in March, completed its first full technical test run between Byappanahalli and Mahatma Gandhi Road, a distance of 6.7 km, successfully here on Sunday.

The train, comprising two driver-motor coaches and one metro car pulled out of the Byappanahalli Depot around 4 p.m., after clearing minor hitches within the depot, and reached its destination on Mahatma Gandhi Road around 7 p.m. with stops at all the six stations en-route.