The New Indian Express | Smarter & faster: Driverless Metro makes debut

Dec 29,2020

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday inaugurated the country’s first fully automated ‘driverless train’ on the Magenta Line of Delhi Metro, hailing it as a major step towards smart India.

“It shows how fast India is progressing towards a smart system. The Delhi Metro is now connected through the National Common Mobility Card. A few years ago, there was not much focus on the smart system. There was a lackadaisical approach, so we saw a huge difference between urbanization and technological development. Our government changed that,” said the PM at the launch of both the technologies.

“With the launch of these fully automated Driverless Train operations (DTO), India enters the elite league of a few countries having this facility in their Metro system,” said the DMRC. Since these trains operate on a communication-based signaling system, they can be run with a headway as high as 90 seconds to offer more carrying capacity, said the DMRC. 

The first such train was flagged from Jasola Vihar-Shaheen Bagh Metro station on Delhi Metro’s 37 km-long Magenta Line -- Janakpuri West to Botanical Garden. According to the Metro, initially the train operator will be present in the train to instill a sense of confidence and assistance. 

According to the Delhi Metro, the fully automated trains will reduce human intervention in operations and offer more reliability and safety to the commuters. This system also brings more flexibility in trains’ operation. As a result, the number of in-service trains can be regulated, based on demand dynamically without dependence on availability of crew.

The National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) — one card serving many purposes — was also launched. From now, any person for any part of the country can pay for their bus travel, toll taxes, parking charges, retail shopping and even withdraw money using this card.

The inaugural ceremony held through video conferencing was also attended by CM Arvind Kejriwal and Union minister Hardeep Puri.