R-MRT has superior operation capacity:

Rail based mass transit options for Colombo

by Sapumali GALAGODA

A train journey is always the preferred choice compared to a bus journey, thanks to the inventor of the Rail transport system, William Jessup. But today due to the inadequacy of trains and rail tracks people even travel on top of the carriages during peak times in our country. The solution is creating alternative tracks connecting all routes. This involves a heavy investment, new technology and most of all careful planning.

Director General Department of Development Finance D.S. Jayaweera, said that the economic viability for a commuter rail with the head way of five minutes, establishing passenger nodal point at Dematagoda, which has a high number of transfers with feeder services (bus based) may be a good option for Colombo.

The Metropolitan Colombo is defined as 80 percent of the land area of the western province where the total population is 5.8 million in 2010, with per capita GDP US $3,259 in 2009. The total passenger flow consists of 120,000 railway passengers and 1,074,756 road passengers. The average trip length in the CMA is around 16 to 25 kilometres. The commuter trip length is around 45 to 72 kms.

It is recommended that commuter rails should start before 2015 on the Moratuwa-Dematagoda line up to Ragama said Jayaweera speaking on the theme rail based mass transit options for Colombo.

Commuter rail

The investment for a commuter rail base MRT for track upgrades and rolling stock needs prompt attention. To make it a reality the CMA needs a land use development authority to have a high density commercial development corridor with recreational as well as an environment sustainable transport system and delivering.

Railway Mass Transit (R-MRT) includes a wide range of urban public transport modes (including metros,suburban railways and light rail transit) that use either fixed tracks or have exclusive and segregated potentially common-user road ways.

The R-MRT usually has a superior operation capacity and performance compared with un-segregated road based public transport. Mass rapid transit which refers to public transit is a passenger transport service.It usually operates on specific fixed tracks or on separated or exclusively use of potential common tracks according to specific schedules along designated routes or lines with specific stops. It is designed to move a large number of people at a given time.

A heavy rail transit system is a system using trains of high performance, electrically-powered rail cars operating in exclusive rights of way, usually without grade crossing and with high platform stations.

Light rail system

A light rail system is a metropolitan electric railway system which operates single cars or short trains along exclusive right of way at ground level, aerial structures in subways or occasionally in streets and to board and discharge passengers at track or car floor level.

Metro is the most common international term for subway heavy rail transit, though it is also commonly used for elevated heavy rail systems. Commuter rail or suburban rail is a portion of passenger rail road operation carrying passengers within urban areas, or between urban areas and their suburbs.The average trip lengths are usually longer while operations are carried out over tracks that are part of the rail road system.

A leading consideration of mass transit is the cost, while it also includes planning and construction time, flexibility in implementation, passenger capacities, speed as well as institutional issues. The LRT and BRT often involve re-allocation of existing road space in favour of more efficient rail roads. The R-MRT in developing countries carry about 11 billion passengers per year,surface rail about five billion and light rail about 2.5 billion.

LRT ranges from the conventional on-street tramways of Eastern Europe to the elevated and segregated system of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Examples of the LRT system in developing cities include the elevated New Delhi, Putra and mono rail system in Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai's Pearl line. The elevated (80 percent of its length) Pearl LRT line in Shanghai serve high density, high-rise apartment to the north of the Shanghai city centre. In the past 30 years 16 cities in the US and Canada have introduced LRT systems.

Trams, a feature of many developing cities, retain a role in some cities such as Hong Kong. In Cairo the percentage of all motorised trips by trams had fallen from 15 percent in 1971 to one percent in 2007.