Delhi Metro begins driverless train operations on Pink Line
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New Delhi: Making the Delhi Metro, the fourth largest city in the world in terms of the driverless train network, DMRC has started Driverless Train Operations (DTO) on 59-km Pink Line starting from Majlis Park and ending at Shiv Vihar spanning 38 stations in Delhi.
The top three are -Singapore (first), Shanghai (second) and Kuala Lumpur (third), the officials said.
Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri and Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot Thursday jointly flagged off the driverless train operations via video conference. With the commencing of the DTO network, the total stretch of the DMRC's network, which is under driverless operations, now stands at close to 97 km.
After the completion of Phase-IV work, when driverless operations will be available on the extensions of the Pink Line and Magenta Line, as well as on the Aerocity-Tughalakabad Silver line, "The DMRC shall become the world's second-largest driverless metro network with 160 km of DTO-equipped corridors," the DMRC said.
India's first-ever driverless train operations on the Delhi Metro's Magenta Line was inaugurated on December 28 last year by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who said that his government, unlike its predecessors, had taken growing urbanisation as an opportunity and asserted that metro train services would be extended to 25 cities by 2025 from the current 18.
With the opening of the first driverless operations in December, the Delhi Metro had "entered an elite league of world's seven per cent metros in the world which operate fully automated metro networks," the DMRC said in a statement on Thursday.
The DTO will bring more flexibility in train operations, reduce human interventions and human errors. It will also help in improving the availability of coaches for service. These trains will eliminate the manual process of checking done before induction, subsequently reducing the burden on train operators, the DMRC statement added.
The parking on the stabling line in depots will also be done automatically, it said.
The DMRC said it has already started "reaping benefits" of driverless operations on its Magenta Line (Janakpuri West to Botanical Garden spanning about 38 km) in terms of increased availability of coaches for service.
In DTO, initially, train operators will be present in the train to instil a sense of confidence and assistance. DTO's higher level of diagnostic features will help move from conventional time-based maintenance to condition-based maintenance. This will also reduce maintenance downtime of trains, it said.