Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the country’s first-ever fully automated driverless train service on the 37km long Magenta Line (Janakpuri West-Botanical Garden) on December 28, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) said on Thursday — the day the corporation completed 18 years of operations.
PM Modi will also launch a fully operational National Common Mobility Card for travel on Airport Express Line on the same day.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be flagging off the country’s first-ever fully automated driverless train service on the 37km Magenta Line on December 28,” DMRC said in a statement on Thursday.
A senior DMRC official said that the technology will first be launched on the Magenta Line, but the Metro is also working to extend this to the Pink Line (Shiv Vihar-Majlis Park) in the next few months.
Another DMRC official, on the condition of anonymity, said that driverless technology was introduced on the Magenta Line and the Pink Line in 2017, but until now, the Metro was conducting rigorous trials to ensure that trains could safely switch over to driverless operations.
Officials explained that the driverless train technology has set standards for automation called grades of automation (GoA). In GoA 1, trains are run by one driver and, in GoA 2 and GoA 3, the role of the driver is reduced to operating doors and for taking over in case of emergencies -- the starting and halting of trains is automated. Finally, in the GoA 4, trains are set on a completely unattended train operations mode.
{{/usCountry}}Officials explained that the driverless train technology has set standards for automation called grades of automation (GoA). In GoA 1, trains are run by one driver and, in GoA 2 and GoA 3, the role of the driver is reduced to operating doors and for taking over in case of emergencies -- the starting and halting of trains is automated. Finally, in the GoA 4, trains are set on a completely unattended train operations mode.
{{/usCountry}}“The progression to remove human intervention entirely is done in a phased manner. After isolated trials at first, we have of late been conducting trials during the non-peak hours. The idea is to gain complete public confidence in the system,” the DMRC official said.
The DMRC had initially set a tentative deadline for operations, under GoA 3, for May this year. But the plans were delayed due to the Covid-19 lockdown.
The DMRC also announced that the NCMC will first be launched on the 23km Airport Express Line, but the facility will be extended to other lines.
“There are certain changes that we had to make in the automatic fare collection (AFC) gates to read the new cards. Along with these cards, all other fare collection options —such as the Metro smart card and the ‘More’ Delhi Common Mobility Card — will continue to be accepted in the Metro network,” said the official.
The NCMC, or the One Nation One Card, will enable travellers to pay multiple kinds of transport charges, including Metro services and toll tax, across the country,while allowing withdrawing money from the same card.
NCMC cards are issued from nearly 23 banks on debit, credit, pre-paid card product platform.
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