Keypoints:
- The driverless train has been manufactured by Bharat Earth Movers Ltd. Bengaluru.
- The first of these automatic trains will reach Mumbai’s Charkop Metro Carshed on January 27, 2021.
- Following operational tests, the train will be deployed on the two new Metro routes scheduled to start from May this year.
- The new driverless trains will be run on Metro 2A Dahisar to DN Nagar and Metro 7 Dahisar to Andheri East.
On Wednesday, the Urban Development Minister Eknath Shinde said that, Mumbai metro will be getting first of its indigenously manufactured driverless trains which will be manufactured from Bharat Earth Movers Ltd, Bengaluru.
First of these automatic trains will reach the Charkop Metro Carshed in Mumbai on January 27 and later, after operational tests, it will be deployed on two new Metro routes scheduled to start from May this year, he said.
“This will be a driverless Metro train, running automatically. But, in order not to panic or make passengers feel unsafe, for around six months initially, they will be operated by a motorman. The trains will have a max speed limit of 80kmph,” said Shinde.
These new driverless trains will be running on Metro 2A Dahisar to DN Nagar and Metro 7 Dahisar to Andheri East, a full seven years after the country’s commercial capital got its first 11-km long Metro on the Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar sector.
The BEML will manufacture around 390 coaches, comprising 65 rakes of 6 coaches each for the proposed 340-km long Mumbai Metro network, at cost of Rs 3,015 crore – which are around 20 percent more economical than those manufactured internationally.Each coach will seat 52 passengers and the capacity of each train is around 2,280 passengers, and while 6 rakes will be delivered in next six months, the rest shall follow over the coming three years.
The trains have state-of-the-art technology like VVVF, Train Control and Management System for speed control and safety, optical fibre in each coach for Internet, and the coaches are designed to conserve energy and switch to alternative non-conventional energy in case of a power outage.
