India’s first under-river Metro is about to go driverless beneath the Hooghly
Kolkata's East-West Metro, which runs through twin tunnels under the Hooghly river, has been cleared by railway safety regulators to begin driverless automatic train operation.
When Kolkata’s East-West Metro dips beneath the Hooghly river through its twin 520-metre tunnels, it is already doing something no other rail line in India does. Now, that same stretch is set to become part of the country’s first driverless under-river Metro operation, after the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) for the Northeast Frontier circle approved automatic train operation (ATO) for the full 16.6-km Green Line corridor.
Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), which is implementing the Rs 10,000-crore East-West Metro project, calls it India’s first under-river transportation system. Officials say they are targeting 15 August to switch on the driverless mode, although the date has not yet been finalised. Even after ATO begins, a driver will remain on board each train, largely to reassure passengers, while the actual running of the train is handled from the Operations Control Centre at the maintenance depot in Salt Lake’s Central Park.
The approval follows a successful driverless trial on the Sector V-Howrah Maidan corridor on Sunday, carried out under the supervision of CRS official Sumeet Singhal, with motormen present in the cabin throughout. A day later, approval for communication-based train control (CBTC) on both the Howrah-bound and Salt Lake-bound lines came through as well. CBTC has been running on East-West Metro since February 2020, but has now been upgraded to a considerably more automated stage.
The CRS’s five-page observation report called on Metro Railway to standardise its rakes, all manufactured by BEML, to ensure uniform operation once driverless services begin generating revenue. KMRC currently operates 17 such rakes, 12 of which are already in revenue service, and the driverless clearance is expected to allow the network to run more services at higher frequencies.
Over the past year, KMRC has trialled driverless running using rakes numbered 606 and 603. Having now cleared the automatic train protection (ATP) test, the corporation may add four more rakes to its fleet. Starting Monday, 14 additional rakes will begin operating in driverless ATO mode once each day’s commercial services conclude, as part of the broader effort to bring the fleet up to standard.
The Green Line currently runs on CBTC’s second stage, known as ATP mode, which enforces speed limits and prevents collisions through a combination of onboard and trackside equipment. That safety layer will continue to operate alongside the new automatic driving function once ATO is formally introduced.
[Wikimedia Commons/by ArnabSaha]
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