Alternative to Hyderabad Airport Metro Express
In continuation to the discussion I started in my previous blog about why Hyderabad Airport Metro Express seems unnecessary in Phase 2, I did more design thinking on how we can address the connectivity to the airport for short to medium term, till we absolutely need a high capacity and high speed connectivity in distant future.
Since the airport traffic is spread out through out the day, the peak passengers per hour per direction is not high enough to warrant a high capacity transit system like Metro Rail today. Instead, a high frequency BRTS is ideal!.
Short to Medium Term: Develop a Multi — Modal Airport Transit Hub at ORR & Bus Rapid Transit Systems (BRTS)
Build an efficient BRTS based airport shuttle on ORR between this transit hub and airport in the very short term.
Key Points
a. Not much city like traffic congestion on ORR
b. Can easily implement a dedicated lane at the median if needed.
c. The carrying capacity can easily satisfy the low traffic that is spread out throughout the day.
d. The frequency should be as high as every 10–15 mins to achieve high pphpd.
e. Provide check-in and baggage drop facility at the transit hub.
f. Ferry the passenger right till the waiting gate of the departure terminal.
Advantages
a. Low cost to implement it as compared to a metro rail.
b. Faster to implement. We needed it yesterday! The transit hub can start small, and slowly expand as the demand grows.
c. Satisfies the need immediately.
The location shown below is ideal because it intersects two ORR stretches. Moreover, the new metro route I proposed in my earlier blog can be extended till here that covers Kokapet area too.
Long Term: High Capacity, High speed Airport loop
Replace BRTS with a point-to-point high speed/high capacity rail between the transit hub and airport. Using a metro like rolling stock for airport express seems to be a low ambition to me. Instead, a point to point high speed and high capacity options like Vande Bharat or something similar that suits 20–30 km station gaps to provide connectivity to airport in the longer term should be explored.
It could run on ground in the middle of ORR because it has sufficient width and additional land acquisition can be avoided. Even building a elevated structure is also not required, a simple steel mesh 10 ft high barricade all along the median is sufficient. Elevated corridors are mainly required for very busy regions and roads inside the city. ORR is a highway and the median can be easily barricaded with cost effective solutions.
When this system is in place for this stretch we can stop BRTS altogether and redeploy these buses in other growing regions.
The even longer term goal should be to provide it along the entire perimeter of ORR and only have 4–5 stops at strategic locations like one in each direction (North, East, West, South ). Run metros within the ORR in each of these regions only up to these multi-modal transit hub stations.
Advantages:
a. A well barricaded median on ground has lower cost as compared to elevated systems.
b. Higher speed and capacity than metro rail.
c. Covers all directions of Hyderabad. Currently, real estate players in the north & east are being deprived of the development that the West (and South in future) is seeing. More equitable distribution of funds.
Every mobility requirement can’t be satisfied by any transit system. We need to develop hierarchical mobility as a service (MaaS) and think in terms of integrated services rather than isolated systems.
Suggestions & Feedback Welcomed. Let’s crowd source the ideas :-)
