Metro or Mono, city needs a ring railway says expert

Metro or Mono, city needs a ring railway says expert
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: While the Metro Rail-Mono Rail debate continues, a professor of engineering and advisor to the state government on city transport matters has stated that while both technologies are good enough, the two corridor alignment of the Metro rail is flawed.

M N Sreehari, chairman of Traffic Engineers and Safety Trainers (TEST), said that for a city like Bangalore, where the growth is radial cum circumferential, there is a need for “ring railways” just like the ring roads. The city is unlike Chennai or Mumbai, which are growing as strips.

“The ring railway concept is clearly away from the proposed Metro which will run along North-South and East-West corridors extending services to only 38 percent of the road users. Most of the city remains uncovered,” he added.

According to him, the practical solution is to utilise the existing rail corridors: Bangalore - Tumkur, Bangalore - Ramanagar, Bangalore - Whitefield and Bangalore - Salem by providing them with multi-lane Electrical Multiple Units (EMU's).

“These existing tracks should be interconnected to from an outer ring and separate lines can be laid to interconnect this ring to an inner one. The inner ring may have a diameter of 10 km with City railway station as the centre. At present Bangalore requires two rings for a circumferential growth of 20 km. This can be expanded to Ramanagar, Tumkur, Gauribidanur and Kolar,” Sreehari said.

“Within the city it is always desirable to have underground tracks to preserve the aesthetics. The outer ring railway can go over the ground, but the first ring of 10 kms radius will have to pass through under the ground,” he noted.

“Monorails are suited for above the ground operations where as metro is ideally suited for underground operations. These vehicles can be taken under ground using the trench-less technology where tunnels are dug without disturbing the traffic on the ground,” the professor said.

“It hardly matters whether the system is metro or monorail as both can be elevated. The emphasis is that whatever the rapid transit system, it should cater to a large cross-section of the people on an hourly basis with adequate feeder services (buses etc).

"Which means that it should be integrated with two or three other systems for effectiveness,” he added.