Metros and riders: Planning requires a rethink to achieve improved outcomes

The Union government has announced the length of India’s Metro network has now crossed 1,000 kilometres, spread over 11 states, covering 23 cities. Another 1,000 kilometres or so is under construction or in an advanced stage of planning. This is a remarkable achievement, given India’s broader struggle to build world-class urban infrastructure. Where Metro rail works, such as in Delhi, it has the potential to transform the urban experience. Delhi is not known for attention to public civility — except in the Metro, where the average rider pays far greater attention to such norms than they would on roads. Unsurprisingly, multiple state and local leaders are determined to extend the number of available Metros so that every town has the opportunity to share in this experience. What is essential is to ensure that the experience remains world-class, through management and maintenance. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, for example, has done a better job of this than the Kolkata Metro, India’s first.

 

Fulfilling this ambition has been made easier for the Union government through concessionary finance. The bill for just the years between 2021 and 2025 is expected to be Rs 3 trillion. But little of that falls directly on the Union Budget. For the second phase of the Chennai Metro, for example, about a third — Rs 34,000 crore — will be provided by the Government of Tamil Nadu. Most of the rest comes from loans taken by the Union government on behalf of the implementing agency, particularly from lenders linked to the Japanese government such as the Asian Development Bank and the Japan International Cooperation Agency. China-linked agencies such as the New Development (or Brics) Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank are also involved. About half the money for the Ahmedabad Metro comes from German and French development banks; the Germans are also supporting the second phase of the Bengaluru Metro. For many of these foreign governments, the decision to lend is partly to support the purchase of rolling stock or construction equipment made by factories located in the countries in question — for example, Germany’s Siemens for the Ahmedabad Metro.

 

Yet there have been significant mistakes made in this rollout as well. The biggest reason why the Metro in Delhi has been relatively successful is that there is no widely used suburban train network with which it must compete and connect, and that it very quickly managed to extend its network considerably. The truth is that, flashy showpieces in city centres notwithstanding, the most effective and in-demand Metros in India are those that are light suburban rail. Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Delhi-Meerut light rail link, which connects the Uttar Pradesh town to Delhi with trains running every 15 minutes. This is a classic suburban rail project, and more such are needed. The ideal use case for actual Metros — such as those in New York, Paris, or Tokyo — exists when there are multiple stops and stations in the city centre, and few individuals are longer than 15 minutes’ walk from a train. Even in Delhi — with stations that are large and far apart — this use case does not exist. It is no wonder that a study conducted by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology of Delhi has pointed out that not one Indian Metro has met ridership targets. In Mumbai, it is a third of projections; in Bengaluru, the first phase hit only 6 per cent. None of them is cost-effective. A re-examination of why some Metros work, and where they don’t, is overdue.