A Vande Bharat train, in Chennai
| Photo Credit: R. RAGU/THE HINDU
The Vande Bharat trains have captured India’s imagination. But out of the 51 origin-destination (O-D) pairings with 82 VB rakes of Vande Bharat trains introduced by Indian Railways (IR), at least 10 O-D pairs have very low patronage. Since the Railways recovers only 47 paisa for every rupee it spends on passenger services, it stands to reason that before it introduced the Vande Bharat trains, the Indian Railways should have conducted a scientific identification of O-D pairs to guarantee that these trains are well patronised on all routes. However, that did not happen. Rough estimates indicate that the Indian Railways has been losing about ₹100 crore due to poor patronage of some of the Vande Bharat O-D pairs.
The first Vande Metro prototype rake with 12 coaches and with passenger facilities comparable to those on Vande Bharat trains was produced by the Rail Coach Factory Kapurthala, Punjab. These trains are intended to run up to 250 kilometres between major cities and neighbouring towns. While selecting O-D pairs for the Vande Metro trains, the Railways should not repeat the same error that it did while selecting the O-D pairs for the Vande Bharat trains.
Categories of train services
The Railways provides at least three types of services for distances of up to 250 km. The first is the Express/Mail, which has stops in major towns en route. The second category is ordinary trains in the Railway’s parlance, also known as slow-moving, multi-stop passenger trains. The third is the electric multiple unit/mainline electric multiple unit (EMU/MEMU), also referred to as “local trains”, which make numerous stops to link major cities with their suburbs and even farther out. The passengers on the local trains experience a crush loading during peak hours.
Although national highways have been developed to connect the major cities with smaller towns, for all practical limitations, the buses that ply for distances up to 250 km are not luxury buses (such as Volvo and Scania). Hence, the quality of the ride is not up to the desired level. Car travel may provide about 90 kmph as average speed, but it is not affordable for middle-class passengers.
A potential travel gamechanger
Like Vande Bharat trains, Vande Metro trains include a continuous, fully air-conditioned gangway that allows passengers to board and depart from any entrance, travel between coaches, and use the bio-toilets. When the doors are closed, fatalities that quite often happen during boarding and disembarking in EMU and MEMU trains will not happen on Vande Metro trains. The Vande Metro will, therefore, fundamentally alter how people travel across distances of up to 250 km. With a maximum design speed of 130 kmph, these trains can run between 75kmph and 90 kmph on average, depending on the track and stops. Numerous advantages will follow from this, such as quicker travel times, more pleasant travel, secure boarding and disembarkation, and modern lavatory facilities.
Because of the energy required for air-conditioning facilities, Vande Metro trains have far greater energy costs than non-air-conditioned second-class carriages. A prototype Vande Metro train costs ₹8 crore a coach to manufacture, which is significantly more than the cost of second-class suburban coaches. This could drop to ₹6 crore a coach in bulk production. Given this, the Railways will not be able to run Vande Metro trains at a rate comparable to that of the second class of currently running trains.
Second-class travellers currently pay 45 paisa, 22 paisa, and 18 paisa a kilometre on mail/express, ordinary, and EMU/MEMU trains, respectively. Travelling at extremely low cost is part of the behavioural lock-in that rail travellers have adopted. Whether these second-class passengers would be willing to switch to air-conditioned Vande Metro trains at a higher ticket price is the million-dollar question. The recent installation of air-conditioning coaches on a few rakes of the suburban rail system in Mumbai has not yielded the expected outcomes.
Air-conditioned services, pricing
Since most people in Mumbai use monthly passes for transit, a comparison examination of those pricing would be more appropriate. A monthly season ticket can be purchased for ₹105 to ₹500 if you do not have air-conditioning, and ₹650 to ₹3,150 in an air-conditioned service. Two years ago, the Railways carried out the request made by a number of passengers (they travel at an extraordinarily high density of 14 people per square metre) for a few air-conditioned coaches in each train. Only 4% of local train customers changed from non-air-conditioned to air-conditioned coaches, in 2023. But many people without proper tickets have also begun to use the air-conditioned coaches, which has led to air-conditioned coaches becoming very crowded.
As a result, neither the Indian Railways nor the passengers who travel on air-conditioned services who have had to wait on platforms for their turn or travel in crowded air-conditioned coaches benefited financially from it. There is no systemic check-in for local trains, in contrast to RapidX (Vande Namo), where there is one for executive class and ordinary class.
The Indian Railways should not repeat the same mistake it did on the Vande Bharat trains on the Vande Metro. The Railways would greatly benefit from a methodical analysis of demand projections for various possible O-D pairs before selecting the routes for VM trains (based on the willingness and ability of passengers to pay). This would result in excellent patronage, improved use of the limited train services, and, ultimately, result in higher revenue for the Indian Railways.
Thiruvannathapuram S. Ramakrishnan is a railway expert