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The real cost of building Metro - elevated?
Written By silkboard - 21 October, 2011
Bangalore Planning Namma Metro Analysis BMRC Transportation public transport Metro Rail
It is Metro time, and papers are full of statements from babus and netas of our city that say that "we didn't go underground because the cost was very high". But then, some citizens say - what about the cost we pay due to inconvenience? Wouldn't that 'hidden cost' tilt the balance in favour of underground? How about putting some numbers to these arguments?
Think of Chord Road, or Kanakapura road. How many people take these roads in the mornings or evenings? Let us assume 25000, morning and evening. They spend extra time due to deviations, or due to slow commute on the under-construction stretch. How much extra time do the commuters have to spend due to the construction? Lets say only 10 minutes, for assumption sake. 10 mins in the morning, 10 in the evening.
So now, 25000 x (10+10) = 500000 minutes. That is 8333 hours.
How much cost would you put to this "time". Mere Rs 30 per hour gives you Rs 2.5 Lakhs / day,
- So, Rs 2.5 Lakhs / day / stretch of impaired road
- For two full years? 2.5 lakhs x 260 working days x 2 = 13 crores.
- Assume 10 such impaired stretches across full phase 1, you get 130 crores.
Assuming going underground would have cost 100% more (a conservative estimate), the extra cost would have been 11000 crores.
11000 crores vs 130 crores. There you have, the numbers.
However, there are many angles around this debate:
- How do you know that UG would be 100% more? Didn't we start with 7000 crore figure, and costs have crept up? We may anyway have reached closer to the UG costs by now.
- There would be other 'hidden' costs to going 'elevated': litigations, and delays due to litigations (CMH Road, Nanda Threater Road).
- Other cost angle woudl be - money that will "NOT" be spent in acquiring land.
- IIM-B to Nagwara line (planned) has a big UG stretches. So perhaps, a lesson is already being implemented there.
COMMENTS
Is our inconvenience costed at all?
silkboard - 21 October, 2011 - 02:56
While we can play with numbers, one question is that do our planners actually factor the costs of citizen inconvenience using methods like above?
Most of us think no.
psaram42 - 21 October, 2011 - 10:24
Town planning for optimizing commute would be a better thought, perhaps? Saving commute time and energy expended is critical to the health of all cities, big and small, in general. Work from home, self contained communities are some of the concepts given a go by.
Development of land for use involves Infrastructure development like road, rail, sea and air transport systems, with suitable terminals for embarking and disembarking of passengers and other passenger support systems like catering, rest rooms, warehouses, etc. Sustainability of these transport systems is an important issue, in general. With Urban economic development there is a possibility of the local vernacular culture being threatened.
Full article under reference, for a complete understanding of the subject.
rs - 21 October, 2011 - 21:29
Sorry for digressing from the point - but since the Metro inauguration, the HSRL has also been in the news - with Kamal Nath sanctioning some of the money. But I was wondering - has anyone done a feasability study on this nonsense. Not whether it is techologically possible - but a survey among say air passengers and workers as to whether they would use it ? I dont think too many will - because its not so convenient - going only to MG road. The volvo busses work wonderfully at the moment - at least to return from the airport. I dont think airport staff would be willing to pay the Rs 200 that they want to charge for a one way ticket !
What would be more useful is a metro line to the airport - say from Hebbal to the airport. That would also save much of Central Bangalore.
Ramesh
idontspam - 22 October, 2011 - 02:37
The metro is something like the Eiffel tower, where you must have it because it is the latest gizmo in town and everybody has to have it – if that’s the reason then it is basically a show piece
We, because we’ve been starved of infrastructure in India, tend to look at most infrastructure projects relatively unquestioningly – we tend to look at all investments as good things, without asking: could we spend this money in a better way?
There are a lot of truths in the article which shows up on the inability of a single agecy to take leadership in the overall plan. It is not odd to think that unless the trunk is long enough 3km feeders may not be so effective instead very simply the idea should have been to extend the metro via bus in the interim to far flung catchment areas or simulate the entire phases using articulated buses till the entire system is built up. It builds the traffic up for the ultimate routes.
The metro cannot afford to cater to 3km catchment instead has to become one of the trunks along with big 10.It will take some time to establish the connections but somebody needsto be observing the trafic patterns closely & I doubt the metro guys have anyone on the job. Maybe our reports could do it. That will be a positive contribution to make the metro better.
idontspam - 1 November, 2011 - 00:48
Just so you know, tunnels run a lot deeper than water & cable lines and yards are always at the surface only at certain stations not all of them, even in overhead the yards dont get built in the air. & stations have to be 2 levels so crossovers to platforms dont happen on the street. Cost of delays were mainly due to non technical reasons of litigation & acquisition etc... there is no need to get into those aspects underground.
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