Bullet train will be a success in India despite meaningless opposition
— Anuj Wankhede
First things first. It is an established fact that wherever trains reach, prosperity and quality of life improve. This is a fact world wide and has been proven in India where all social indicators show an uptick after rail connectivity starts. Better the connectivity, higher the social and economic returns. Against this backdrop, let’s understand why the opposition to the bullet train in India is foolish and a meaningless debate.
The Mumbai Ahmedabad bullet train will be a success despite dubious claims made by an RTI activist who has got data on the current occupancy of trains currently running on this route and claiming that it will fail because of lack of passengers.
This is totally misinterpreting data which has been gathered. International studies have showed that the potential traffic density between the two cities of Mumbai and Ahmedabad is the second highest in the world - first being Tokyo-Osaka.
The media reports mention that the Shatabdi express used to be 100% full till few years back but is now only 40% occupied. Did those 60% migrate en mass to road if not air? Or dropped dead? Where did they go? Why? Gathering RTI data is no big deal (it costs ₹10), but analysing it for getting meaningful information is a skill - and most RTI activists just wave the papers and claim falsehoods.... Points to note (which are deliberately avoided by those opposing the bullet train) are:
1) It is NOT a point to point service. There are upto a total of 11 halts. Thus there will be a lot of passengers between say Mumbai to Surat, then a half empty coach say between Surat to Baroda and then again a full occupancy between Baroda to Ahmedabad. Railways make money by selling the SAME SEAT A NUMBER OF TIMES IN ONE SINGLE TRIP. The seats get vacated en route and are then occupied by the passenger going to the next leg(s). This is where people who compare end-to-end passenger traffic get it wrapped up. This basic lack of understanding makes people misinterpret and muddle up the whole economics of train travel and compare it to air travel.
2) This is not a Shatabdi type of once a day shuttle but a regular service every few minutes. It is a RAPID MASS TRANSIT system. This changes the whole concept of "local train" travel making Mumbai-Surat as simple as say Churchgate-Borivali. Obviously, the passenger traffic will increase exponentially once the services start and the numbers quoted now will be a fraction of what will be achieved.
3) The bullet train will be too expensive" is a joke. Today, time is more than money - as is health, safety and comfort. The explosive growth in air travel across India (even between smaller cities) is testimony to this fact. People pay a premium to travel in Metros precisely for this reason Additionally, the bullet train will not face disruptions due to traffic pileups on highways, flooding etc.
4) The end points for the route are business hubs and all the planned midway stations are business cum industrial hubs (Thane, Boisar, Vapi, Valsad, Surat, Bharuch, Ankleshwar, Baroda) and there is significant intercity travel between these cities. These are business trips and if businessmen or companies can save big time money on fuel+driver+toll+time then they will obviously shift to a bullet train.
Mind you, this short distance travel of 2 to 3 hours (sometimes even lesser) is almost never reserved travel. Thus, just looking at reservation numbers does not give the correct picture of the current occupancy of the existing trains.
Perhaps the RTI activist who got this data should take an intercity train between Mumbai and Surat to understand how much of traffic already exists - people buy first class tickets at over 3 times the ordinary fares simply to at least comfortably stand and travel is proof that there are already enough people paying to simply travel with a little bit of ease.
There are plenty of other reasons like taking the travellers right inside the city instead of being dropped at an airport (if it exists) on the outskirts of the city from where both -time and money — need to be spent to reach the place of work.
Then again, nobody thinks of how many man hours are saved and this productivity directly adds to the overall GDP of the country.
Nor do they factor in the benefits that accrue due to the better access to markets, educational institutions,, government offices, courts etc which are part of everybody’s lives. Can people afford a flight for all these mundane and routine trips?
The bullet train will undoubtedly be a success just like Delhi Metro did and will change the concept of regional train travel.
It is wiser to be a realistic and practical rather than oppose everything for the sake of opposing - with an eye on publicity.
Anuj Wankhede
(A rail fan)
Updated — Watch the conversation with the man tasked to build the high speed railway project at
