Is it good for the Indian government to invest in bullet trains (high speed railway HSR)?

First of all, Indian Railways infrastructure is old, slow, overburdened and has questionable safety record. Moreover, the increasing population of India, asks for an improvement in transportation infrastructure. Thus, an upgrade to High-Speed Rail (HSR) by Indian Railways has been overdue for a long time. The decision to go with HSR represents a step in right direction.

But not everyone shares my enthusiasm towards the project. The major criticism is focused around the cost of the project. At a price tag of ₹ 98,000 crore ($ 14.7 billion), there is no denying that this project is expensive. However, I’m convinced that we should welcome bullet trains with open arms. Let me elaborate on my rationale behind it.

Bullet Trains are Awesome

Japan first introduced the High-Speed Rail to the world in 1964. Since then, many other countries like Germany, France and China have added HSR to their railway networks. Yet, the Japanese world famous Shinkansen, commonly known as ‘bullet train’, still is the best and represents a gold standard in train travel.

Fifty years ago, when Japan took an $80 million loan from World Bank to build its first bullet train, it faced fierce opposition. Harsh criticism were made against the expensive project of a non-existent technology. Various technical difficulties and out of budget expenditures made the leaders behind Shinkansen project look crazy. However, since its inception, bullet trains have changed the way people travel in Japan, spurred economic benefits and has shown the Japanese technological finesse to the world.

Since its introduction, Shinkansen has expanded and made significant technological improvements. Currently, the Shinkansen network is spread over 2600 km and has an annual ridership of over 350 million, with plans of further expansions to the network.

Shinkansen travels at a maximum speed of 320 km/hr. This roughly translates to covering a distance of 88 meters in a second. This is whooping fast. It is around 3 times faster than a conventional car, and 7.5 times faster than Usain Bolt.

 The mastery of Japanese HSR can been seen seen in its reliability and safety record. In 2014, the average delay time of Shinkansen was just 54 seconds. This sounds more remarkable, when you can consider that this delay time included delays caused by natural disasters. Also, in entire history of Shinkansen, there have been no passenger fatalities due to derailment or collision. This is more amazing when you recollect that Japan is frequently hit by strong earthquakes and typhoons.

In all, buying bullet trains from Japan ensures that India is getting the best High-Speed Rail.

Another wow factor of the bullet train is its aerodynamically designed nose. Just look at it.

 Advantages of High-Speed Rail

1. Fastest mode of transport at optimum distance

The biggest advantage of High-Speed Rail is that it’s fast and reduces the travel time. But HSR aren’t the fastest mode of transport, that crown is still held by commercial planes travelling at about 850 km/hr. However, the total travel time of HSR is lower at short and mid-range distances. The advantage with HSR is that you travel from city center to city center. While, planes travel from airports, which are usually away from cities. This leads to long travel times in taxis to airport, plus additional time in check-in, boarding, security and waiting for baggage. With bullet trains, you can directly go to the station and board the train. If travel time is the biggest factor, the optimal journeys for HSR are with distances of 100–900 km, where they can beat both planes and cars in total travel time. HSR can also be competitive with automobiles over shorter distances when your account for traffic delays.

2. Comfort

Trains are definitely the most comfortable mode of transport. In attempts to reduce the cost of air travel, carriers have managed to cramp more passenger in the same plane by reducing legroom and seat width. Consequently, air travel isn’t comfortable at all, the only solace being shorter travel time.

Cars and buses, pretty much have the same story. Additionally, mad traffic sense, traffic congestion and bad conditions of roads in India, make automobile travel very jerky. Not the most comfortable in my book. Since, trains travel on smooth unobstructed rails, trains have the potential of being the most comfortable mode of transportation. In terms of space, trains are still the best. I prefer sleeping on the sleeper coach in comparison to the seats. Despite the potential, Indian Railways lag behind in cleanliness and toilet sanitation. But bullets trains should address this issue, and hopefully provide a vision and motivation for all of Indian Railways to improve.

3. Cost

HSR usually have advantage in price over air tickets. However, if you expect cost of travel to be close to current price of train travel in India, you are going to be up for a huge disappointment. The ticket cost for bullet train is expected to be more than the current rail tickets, but cheaper than air travel. The cost of air travel is hugely dependent on international cost of jet fuel. So air travel is expected to increase with rising price of fuel.

 4. Reliability and Safety

Despite the dismal record of Indian Railways, trains are supposed to be most reliable and safest mode of transport. Trains travel on dedicated tracks, so ideally there shouldn’t be delays. Indian Railways isn’t reliable because it’s overloaded, has old rail tracks, and uses old signalling technology which leads to massive delays in weather condition like fog, rain and cyclones. Japanese bullet trains have shown that they are reliable. India should be able to match it with advanced technology in place. Air travels are also more susceptible to delays caused by weather conditions than trains with advanced signalling system.

5. Reduced footprint

The overall footprint of trains is much lower than car. HSR rails can reduce the burden of cars on highways.

6. Energy Efficiency

Train travel is more energy efficient than air travel and automobile. With the growing concern over carbon emission, HSR running on electricity can provide huge carbon break.

Ahmedabad-Mumbai route makes lot of sense

Since, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi is from Gujarat and Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu is from Maharashtra, people have a feeling that this is reason why Ahmedabad-Mumbai has been chosen as the corridor for first bullet train in India. This factor would have definitely swung in a favour for selection of Ahmedabad-Mumbai corridor. Still, if you look at Ahmedabad-Mumbai route objectively, it makes a lot of sense.

Ahmedabad-Mumbai route is one of the busiest and densely populated rail route in the country. At a length of around 530 km, this route has the optimal distance for running a High-Speed Rail.

Also, this route lies along Mumbai-Delhi route for future expansion. Moreover, connectivity to Pune can be added in future.

Flat terrain and Easy land acquisition:

The entire route is flat at around sea level, thus reducing the construction cost. Building an HSR between Mumbai-Pune would have been quite more expensive per unit km because of the mountainous terrain.

Furthermore, Gujarat has a good track record in swift land acquisition. Investors don’t want a project to be delayed or stalled due to land acquisition issues.

Plenty rich travelers:

Along the route lies the huge prosperous middle class population. Mumbai is the economic capital of India, Ahmedabad is the biggest city in Gujarat, Surat is the fastest growing city in the country and Vadodara has a huge middle class population. If there is route in India which will ensure enough travelers willing to pay high cost for bullet train travel, it has to be this route.

Criticism on the cost of project:

The hefty price tag of ₹ 98,000 crores has attracted harsh criticism. Considering the fact that the total investment by Indian Railways Between 2015–2019 is going to be ₹8, 56,020 crores, and the total expenditure on Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train seems to be out of reach.

However, the major reason why India went ahead with the bullet train deal is the easy loan deal financed by Japan. According to the deal, Japan will finance 80 % cost of the project, at just 0.1% interest rate over a 50 year period after 15 years of moratorium. In simple words, if the loan period begins in 2017, India will have to only pay ₹2000 crore to Japan from 2032 to 2067. With the growing economy, India shouldn’t have trouble repaying it.

The loan deal is on the condition that India purchases 30% of the equipment from Japan. This is a huge advantage, as it will allow India to manufacture 70% of components in India. Such a massive infrastructure project will spurn many jobs in the region. Moreover, with technology transfer, India can save on money and years of research in development of High-Speed Rail. The ambition will be to not only learn, but also search for ways to reduce the cost of HSR projects in future. As shown with cheap space exploration mission by ISRO, India has shown the ability to do this.

The soft financing by Japan makes it a no brainier to invest in bullet trains.

The easy financing that is will be used to build the bullet train wouldn’t have been provided for any other purpose, except for buying bullet trains from Japan. Thus, the question of investing this money for purposes like improvement of existing rail infrastructure or upgrading to mid-speed rail instead of HSR don’t arise.

Building for the future

In many ways, it can be argued that Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project is more focused for the future. But why this should be held against it. For years, India has lagged behind on its infrastructure needs. We have looked at solutions only after we have encountered problems. Why shouldn’t a developing country aspire to solve its future needs?

By 2030, India will add 20 crore more people to its middle class. These people will have higher spending capacity, as well as the need for fast transportation. This huge demand will clog the airports.

Moreover, we shouldn’t follow US model of developing road networks and neglecting public transport. We should strive to be country where people travel on its excellent transportation infrastructure.

We should also learn from our history. When Delhi metro was being built, there were serious questions being asked about the need of undertaking such an expensive project. However, since its introduction, Delhi has highly utilized this service. Thus, making Delhi Metro a huge success. Thanks to the leadership of Mr. Sreedharan, Delhi metro showcased India’s ability to not only undertake a world class infrastructure project, but also finish it within budget and time.