Personal Rapid Transit in India
The National Highway Authority of India has announced that they are contracting a pilot project to build a personal rapid transit system in India in Gurgaon-Delhi Border right on the outskirts of the capital.
“A personal rapid transit (PRT) network is made up of small automated vehicles running at close intervals on a guide-way with docking stations for passengers to get on and off”.
These are like “on-demand pods” giving you the benefits of both public and private transportation .These driver less pods will be suspended 4–10 m above ground from overhead rails. It is going to be an eight mile network with 1,100 pod cars carrying up to 5 passengers at nearly 40 miles per hour.
It is going to be a 25 years Build Operate Transfer (BOT) project which will cost around $128 million and around one year to build. The land for the same has been acquired and requires no other clearances.
There are a number of things that needs to be thought about .One is how much is the project feasible in a city like Gurgaon where everything has come up recently and privately provided. The city has seen a sudden influx of high-end malls, skyscrapers and hotels attracting a lot of investment without a simultaneous equivalent development of Infrastructure and lack of public funding .Second what is the possibility of succeeding in the implementation of this type of system when it has not worked out on a large scale anywhere else in the world? It is currently only active in four places in the world which are Morgantown, West Virginia, Masdar City in Abu Dhabi where the current Prime Minister sat in, Heathrow Airport in London, Rotterdam in Netherlands and recently Suncheon in North Korea. Even New Jersey last year was trying to build a system of jpods powered through solar energy but got caught up in some hurdles. But in all these places also, this system is like a feeder system rather an actual transit system. Thirdly, is it really the most efficient solution to Gurgaon’s traffic or the answer is as simple as more effective Bus Transport System.
There are definitely also benefits to such kind of a system. Suspended pods means no traffic on ground, electric cars means less pollution, convenience to passengers of directly reaching your destination. It can definitely solve the “last mile” connectivity problem in India. Being next to New Delhi, one of the most polluted cities of the world where tactics such as the even –odd system is being implemented to reduce its pollution, new solutions are definitely needed. Whether this will even see completion will depend on the interest and investment of the private sector. Will it be successful? Only time will tell.
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