A magic bullet for our travel woes

Recently, an RTI reply from the Western Railways on occupancy rates and losses it incurs in the Ahmedabad-Mumbai stretch, had the media going berserk, claiming that there was no demand for rail services on the route. They wondered how the government could justify the development of a High Speed Rail (HSR) between Ahmedabad and Mumbai.

Those familiar with the Passenger Reservation System (PRS) of the Railways, would have easily sensed that the RTI reply was incorrect, given the fact that most of the Mail/Express and premium trains have huge waitlisted passengers. Why did the Western Railways say that only 60 per cent of the seats were filled?

Wrong numbers

The RTI application might have asked for information on the passengers travelling between the Origin-Destination (O-D) pairs of Ahmedabad and Mumbai and vice versa, and Railways officials would have given information on the number of passengers travelling by each train between the O-D pairs of Ahmedabad and Mumbai and vice versa, leaving out the passengers of other O-D pairs enroute such as Vadodara-Mumbai, Surat-Mumbai, Ahmedabad-Surat, Vadodara-Surat, Ahmedabad-Vadodara, and vice-versa.

If a train achieves an overall occupancy of about 95 per cent, Ahmedabad-Mumbai O-D pair alone constitute 60 per cent and the rest of the O-D pairs constitute the remaining 35 per cent. Moreover, the waitlisted passengers run into few hundreds for every train and every PRS class on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai route, as on in any other route. This instance shows how Railways officials fail to understand the intent of such queries.

However, the official who provided the information under RTI does not seem to have applied his mind on the discrepancy between the data he provided and the reality.

The next question pertains to the losses the Railways suffers. The Railways has been incurring losses of about ₹30,000 crore every year on passenger transport all over India, which includes both suburban and non-suburban travel. As a result, IR has been cross-subsidising passenger transport by levying a higher tariff on freight transport.

On an average, IR recovers only ₹60 for every ₹100 it spends on passenger services. There are hardly any trains that recover the expenditure that IR incurs. The only exception is air conditioned 3 tier coaches, where with 80 per cent occupancy, IR would recover what it spends, and an occupancy of more than 80 per cent would fetch a profit for IR. Losses are incurred across all stretches, and the Ahmedabad-Mumbai stretch is no exception.

Ways people travel

That said, the detailed data provided by WR in terms of seat/berth potential, earning potential, actual earnings and ‘per cent’ booked and ‘per cent’ earned, have busted many myths on passengers’ travel preferences. The trains that run between Ahmedabad and Mumbai may be broadly classified into two categories: a) trains that originate and terminate between Ahmedabad and Mumbai or vice versa; b) trains that pass through either Ahmedabad or Mumbai or both. There are totally 18 trains and 50 trains, both directions together, in the first and second category, respectively.

Four among 18 first-category trains are ordinary trains (slow-moving passenger trains), which take about 16 hours to cover the 500-km stretch of Mumbai and Ahmedabad, with about 70 stops. They are the least patronised trains, realising only 68 per cent of the earning potential.

The relatively low fares of these passenger trains in comparison with any other mode has not made them a preferred choice among travellers. In fact, the decreased patronage for ordinary trains has been a phenomenon across the country since 2014-15. For instance, the passenger travel by ordinary trains peaked at 2,92,121 Million Passenger KM (PKM) in 2013-14 and started declining to 2,82,941 Million PKM in 2014-15 and 2,61,462 Million PKM in 2015-16.

The shortest night travel time between Ahmedabad and Mumbai is offered by Duronto, a non-stop direct train between the two cities, which should have been the most preferred among all trains as it saves production hours of the day and runs fastest as well. However, the occupancy was about 81 per cent, lower than other overnight trains with a longer travel time.

Why does this happen? Rail passengers prefer night trains that synchronise with their sleep time and give them enough rest in the night. For instance, Duronto 12267 departs at 23:25 from Mumbai and terminates at Ahmedabad at 05:55 and Duronto 12267 departs at 23:40 from Ahmedabad and terminates at Mumbai at 06:00.

Leaving aside half an hour each after departure and before arrival, the passengers are left with only 5 hours 20 minutes to sleep. The mere reduction in travel time by half an hour or one hour does not make the travel between cities attractive.

The travel time should either be long enough to synchronise with about eight hours of sleep, or it should be about three or four hours to enable onward and return trips in the morning and evening, respectively.

The travel time reduction should be large enough, so that it changes the way passengers travel.

Bullet train advantage

When HSR is commissioned in the stretch of Ahmedabad and Mumbai, passengers of eleven stations enroute would get a new avenue of onward and return travel within a day and still be able to make use of their day time effectively. That is why HSR which operates at an average speed of about 250 kmph (with a maximum speed of 320 kmph) is ideal for a distance up to 800 km, as it allows passengers to do the onward travel in the morning and return in the evening.

To serve this purpose, all over the world, HSR services have higher frequency during 06:00 to 09:00 in the morning and 18:00 to 21:00 hours in the evening and reduced frequency during the day time. Of course, air transport also provides the same facility.

But HSR or bullet trains could provide access to more places in the stretch (nine enroute stations), higher capacity than air, accommodate tens of thousands of passengers in an hour and could operate with a headway of five minutes, providing an effective alternative travel mode for passengers.

The change in the way people travel is the key purpose of introducing HSR in a stretch. It could provide a convenient, flexible and faster mode for people to travel anywhere within the stretch and all throughout the day to carry out their economic and personal activities.

The writer is an independent consultant

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