Making Surface Rail a Viable Mode for

Urban Mass Transit

by M Ravibabu
(The author has published an updated version of this article in the Economic and Political Weekly (April
22, 2006).)
Surface rail costs one-twentieth of an elevated metro rail and is a feasible alternative for
many Indian cities.
Choice for urban mass transport investment is centred on: metro rail and monorail with an implicit
assumption that surface rail transport is unviable. In Delhi around 10, 500 crores was invested for 66
kilometre metro line. Chennai is planning a 300-kilometre monorail system, which may require Rs
45,000 crores as per estimates. Bids for thirteen kilometre Mumbai's elevated metro system give a
picture on viability of the system, the lowest bid was for Rs 2300 crores including subsidy (technically
termed viability gap funding) of 1200 crores. Similarly, draft national urban transport policy gives low
priority for surface rail transport when it says, "at grade (surface rail) systems are very good for
suburban systems and the fringe areas of a city where space is more easily available".
While in some cases, especially in heart of the city, the above options are necessary, viability of
surface rail as needs to be explored more seriously because of the advantages of cost, capacity, and
flexibility. At Rs 8 crores per kilometre, cost of surface rail is miniscule compared to Rs 250-300 crores
for underground rail, Rs 150-180 crores for elevated rail, and Rs 100-150 crores for monorail.
Capacity of surface and elevated rail systems is comparable and varies between 8,000 - 10,000
passengers per hour per direction while monorail may have 20 per cent lesser capacity. Surface rail
has flexibility in capacity expansion and operation compared to the metro and monorail systems as the
system is on the ground.
Major constraint in developing surface based rail transit system is the availability of space for right of
way. A two-pronged approach would be effective in making space available; one for the core city
based on intense usage of existing rail network and another for the newly developing suburbs
directing growth along new rail network.
Owing to foresight shown by the British, most Indian cities have a well-developed rail network for
running mixed traffic consisting of passenger carrying and goods trains. The network can be used for
urban mass transport by augmenting section capacity, terminal decongestion, and developing
alternate routes to move goods trains.
For newly developing suburbs, approach to city planning needs to be revised with surface based rail
network acting as the main hub for movement of urban passenger traffic. This requires planners to
identify land for a four-line main corridor, double line link corridors and reorient new road network to
feed the rail terminals to enable easy access to commuters. This requires revision in master plan to
reserve 2-3 per cent of land for rail transport.
Hyderabad Example
Hyderabad and suburban locations have around 160 kilometres of railway network including 120
kilometres on four main corridors and 40 kilometres of bye pass lines and small spurs covering well-
populated areas in the city. Out of this, 48 kilometres was made fit for urban traffic as part of Phase 1
of Multimodal transport system (MMTS). Around Rs 500 crores are required for upgrading the system
to run urban traffic on the remaining system and Rs 200 crores for connecting roads and developing
bus terminals.
To upgrade existing system to cater to urban traffic the following is required:
Develop alternate routes to run goods trains with scope for future expansion
Ease terminal constraints at Secunderabad and Hyderabad stations
To move goods trains additional capacity needs to be created by constructing a 160-kilometre outer
ring rail with an investment of around Rs 1500 crores with scope to expand to four lines in future. We
need to develop link network of around 100 kilometres costing Rs 800 crores inter connecting the
existing rail network to proposed outer ring rail.
Terminal constraint can be eased by eliminating shunting movements at the stations. This is possible
if maintenance is shifted to four suburban locations, one in each direction, and trains ready in all
respects are turned out. Four modern coaching maintenance terminals require around 240 acres of
land and an investment of Rs 160 crores.
To summarise, surface rail based urban mass transport system requires total investment of around Rs
3200 crores for upgradation of 160 kilometres of existing rail network, adding 260 kilometres of rail
network, and improvement in road connectivity. Comparatively, a 59 kilometre elevated metro rail is
estimated to cost Rs 9000 crores of which subsidy is expected to be around Rs 4800 crores (subsidy is
estimated by the author based on bids for Mumbai system). State government is also investing Rs
5100 crores for developing outer ring road and the link roads. Thus, surface rail system of much
larger capacity (420 kilometres) will be created at one third cost (or sixty per cent of the
subsidy) of an elevated metro rail of much lower capacity (59 kilometres).
Thus, surface rail costs one-twentieth of elevated metro rail and is a feasible alternative for many
Indian cities such as Hyderabad, New Delhi and Nagpur that have existing rail network. The draft
urban transport policy should be modified to leverage this strength. Similarly, city master plans should
be modified to reserve 2-3 per cent of land for surface rail to meet future public transport needs of the
city.


Suburban rail, urban rail, commuter rail, or regional rail, plays a major role in the public
transport system of many of India's major cities. Suburban rail is defined as a rail service between a
central business district and suburbs, a conurbation or other locations that draw large numbers of
people on a daily basis. The trains providing such services may be termed suburban trains. Trains
on the Mumbai Suburban Railway, Chennai Suburban Railway and Kolkata Suburban Railway are
referred to as "local trains" or "locals".
Suburban rail in India operates on lines shared with other passenger and freight trains (like
the Lucknow-Kanpur Suburban Railway) or a combination of dedicated suburban lines and lines for
long distance trains (like the Mumbai Suburban Railway). The infrastructure in India is owned
by Indian Railways and usually operated by one or more of the railway zones of Indian Railways.
In some cities of India, the opening of rapid transit systems have led to a decline in use of the
Suburban rail system.
A Suburban trains that handle commuter traffic are mostly electric multiple units (EMUs). They
usually have nine or twelve coaches and sometimes even fifteen to handle rush hour traffic. One unit
of an EMU train consists of one power car and two general coaches. Thus a nine coach EMU is
made up of three units having one power car at each end and one at the middle. The rakes in some
of the suburban rails run on direct current and others on alternating current.
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