Why Metro Rail?

 

There are quite a few modes of rapid transit out there like trams, buses, metros, suburban rail etc. In India a little more than a dozen cities have Metros, including Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi and many more. But why are cities choosing metros? Why not trams or suburban rail? Let’s talk about that.

 

Now you want to know why cities are choosing metros for their rapid transit, right? Cities choose metros mainly to move people from one part of the city to another, unlike say suburban rail which moves people from the outside to the inside of a city and vice versa.

Now, you may think “why are cities building expensive metros instead of much more cheaper trams of Buses?” there are 2 main reasons: 

1) Capacity

2) Traffic

Let me explain. 

Capacity is the most important reason cities build metros.  Metros can carry huge swaths of people and still operate every 2 or 3 minutes. Trams, on the other hand  have only about 3/4s the capacity of a metro. 

The second one is traffic. Most trams and some Buses operate in mixed traffic. Metros usually are mostly or entirely separated from through traffic. They are mostly on elevated or underground.  Disappointingly if you get angry of the driver, you can't park your car on the tracks (just kidding)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

  1. பாஸ்கி24 February 2022 at 08:25

    Very good Guru.
    Keep writing

    ReplyDelete
  2. Raghavan Subramaniyan24 February 2022 at 08:30

    Nice blog! Maybe some pictures would make it more attractive.
    This related to your point on traffic: another advantage of metro rail is speed. You can take an example of going to city railway station by bus versus metro.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Magesh24 February 2022 at 09:25

      Hi, This is Gurubaran. Thanks for your comments. I will try to add photos in future posts. Speed is important in India,
      Interestingly in Europe it is not an important factor. In Europe a lot [most] of the trams are separated from traffic. The trams run at pretty high speeds. and buses can also run at high speeds, especially BRTs [bus rapid transit] not to mention suburban rail, which runs at similar or even higher speeds than a metro. I am not even mentioning High speed rail which can arguably considered as rapid transit. So in Europe capacity and Frequency of transit is more important.
      And In India we don't see much on On Street Transit. BRTs are mostly limited to smaller size cities such as Hubli / Dharwad , Bhubaneshwar. Poor Trams!!! They are only limited to Kolkata.

      Delete
  3. Unknown24 February 2022 at 09:44

    Great info and analysis guru...another important point there is high cost involved in building the metro infrastructure....trams were once part of chennai transport system. It faded away due to its ill-maintenance

    ReplyDelete
  4. Baaji24 February 2022 at 19:19

    Very good attempt Guru. This is short and sweet.. All the best..

    ReplyDelete
  5. Unknown24 February 2022 at 22:13

    Congratulations on your new blog Gurubaran!!!👏

    ReplyDelete
  6. Unknown26 February 2022 at 19:17

    All the best.
    Very nice

    ReplyDelete
  7. Karthick6 March 2022 at 20:07

    Good one guru... Very nice attempt .. congrats and all the best

    ReplyDelete

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