Delhi can ride in brand new ‘driverless’ Metro trains from June

Delhi Metro is expected to open the Botanical Garden-Kalkaji Mandir section of Phase III to passengers in June with more advanced trains that can go driverless.

Come June and you will be able to travel on the swanky new trains of the Delhi metro, which can also run without drivers. Passengers travelling between Noida and Kalkaji are likely to be the first one to experience the travel with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) scheduled to complete the work on this section of phase-III in May.

The Delhi Metro’s Magenta line (Janakpuri-West Botanical Garden ) is expected to begin operations in June. A new set of trains will run on the Pink and magenta lines. (HT PHOTO)

It will then apply for inspection, which usually takes a month, which means the line can be opened for public by June.

The new trains will run on two new lines - Pink (Mukundpur-Shiv Vihar) and Magenta (Botanical Garden-Janakpuri west) and will cover a distance of 96 km. Delhi metro has also ordered 516 coaches (86 trains). These trains will run only on these two lines and cannot be integrated with the other existing lines. These trains have many unique features, which sets it apart from existing trains.

Trials between Botanical Garden in Noida and Kalkaji Mandir (13 kilometres) in Delhi had started on October 27 last year while trial runs between Terminal 1-IGI airport and Janakpuri west (10KM) began on December 21. Track laying is nearing completion in the remaining underground section between Terminal 1 – IGI Airport and Kalkaji Mandir and trials will be started on this section also in the coming months.

The new trains, with extremely high levels of automation, had to undergo rigorous trials between these stations to ensure that they are ready for smooth operations after the commissioning of the corridor. Initially, train operators will run the trains, but gradually, driverless operations (on the Unattended Train Operation or UTO mode) will be possible.

During the trial runs, the interface of the metro train was checked to ensure that there was no physical infringement with civil infrastructure and the various subsystems of coaches were also tested.

Later on, in stages, the new signalling technology was implemented on this corridor; the Communication Based Train Control (CBTC) had to undergo rigorous testing. The response of the train at different speeds, braking and the interconnection with the Operations Control Centre (OCC) was also monitored during the trials. The behaviour of the track system and the Over Head Electrification (OHE) was checked repeatedly.

This particular section from Botanical Garden till Kalkaji Mandir consists of nine elevated stations – Botanical Garden, Okhla Bird sanctuary, Kalindi Kunj, Jasola Vihar Shaheen Bagh, Okhla Vihar, Jamia Milia Islamia, Sukhdev Vihar, Okhla NSIC and Kalkaji Mandir. Work on all stations has been completed and finishing activities are in progress.