Mumbai Metro One snippets

Work on the first line of the Mumbai Metro—covering Versova, Andheri and Ghatkopar—will be over by July 2010, much before the 2012 deadline set by the MMRDA. This claim came from Mumbai Metro One director K P Maheshwari, who also said, “There will be 16 trains with four coaches, each carrying 1,500 people right from Day One.’’ Maheshwari also pointed out that the cost of the project would be higher than the estimated Rs 2,356 crore due to a change in design. He said a bridge and some column foundations had to be redesigned because of technical problems. These changes, in turn, pushed up the price tag.Maheshwari said during digging (to lay foundations for the pillars), his team had to deal with utilities such as sewage pipes, power cables and telephone lines. The team had to redesign the column foundations to ensure that the utilities were not disrupted, which led to higher costs. “They also had to redesign a bridge over the railway tracks at Andheri, which further added to the costs,’’ Maheshwari said.

Global firms involved in Mumbai Metro One

In 2011, Mumbai’s suburban commuters will be able to swipe their card tickets and board the metro rail. There will be no need to queue up at station windows while commuting on the first high-speed metro rail corridor coming up between Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar (VAG). For residents staying along this metro corridor, the movement of trains would be noiseless. The contract for the VAG corridor’s Automatic Fare Collection systems has been awarded to Spanish firm Indra by the implementing agency, the Mumbai Metro One Pvt Ltd led by Reliance Energy. The contracts for laying tracks and installing communication systems between operators and passengers have been awarded to VNC-Rail One and Thales respectively. VNC-Rail One is a joint venture between VNC from Visakhapatnam and Rail One from Germany whereas Thales is a French giant.The proposed AFC system for the VAG corridor is a closed loop system based on contactless smart card technology. The company will be responsible for the design, manufacture, delivery, installation, commissioning and maintenance of the systems. One of the most experienced contractors in the world for AFC systems, Indra has successfully completed and commissioned similar work for Metro systems in Madrid, Lisbon, Shanghai, Barcelona and Athens. MMOPL has said that it plans to complete the project in a record 30 months.The tracks would be almost zero maintenance with a noiseless and vibration-proof system to make it environmentfriendly, said the MMOPL officials. Thales, a French giant in defence and communication systems, would employ the most sophisticated technology and would entail the use of closed circuit cameras at all stations, within the trains and at depots. The communication system will have passenger information display, passenger announcement and radio systems, master clock and time synchronisation system with optic fibre-based backbone transmission network as well as a system for transferring CCTV images from moving trains to the Operation and Control Centre and stations on a real time basis. The entire system would be attached to the black box as part of security measures, an official pointed out. Thales has undertaken numerous such projects for metro lines across the world, including the Delhi Metro.

Mumbai Metro One inches forward

The major hurdle in the path of the first metro rail corridor of Mumbai was resolved on Monday with authorities taking possession of a property required for a car shed in suburban Andheri. The 31-acre-plot, located in the Four Bungalows area of Andheri, was handed over by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) to the Mumbai Metro One, which is constructing the 11-km-long Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar metro link.According to MMRDA authorities, 23.7 acres of the land will be used for the metro rail car shed while the remainder will be with the private developer from whom the plot was acquired.