Delhi Metro operations anniversary: Field trial of indigenous system begins

New Delhi: Delhi Metro on Friday entered into the 20th year of its operations and marked the occasion by commencing a field trial of a first-ever indigenously developed signalling technology, and unveiling an exhibition on its journey at Kashmere Gate station. The field trial of the first-ever indigenously developed i-ATS technology (Indigenous Automatic Train Supervision) for Delhi Metro's Red Line (Rithala-New Bus Stand (Shaheed Sthal)) was inaugurated by Durga Shanker Mishra, secretary in the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, and Chairman, DMRC via video conferencing, officials said.

On the occasion of the Delhi Metro operations entering into its 20th year, Mishra also inaugurated an exhibition themed 'Tracing Delhi Metro's Journey', hosted at the Kashmere Gate metro station, they said.

Delhi Metro had begun its commercial operations on December 25, 2002, a day after then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had inaugurated DMRC's first stretch, spanning 8.2 kilometre from Shahdara to Tis Hazari, with just

six stations.

The location from where, the then prime minister had inaugurated the first-ever metro corridor in the national capital, has been "redeveloped into a full-fledged exhibition with priceless photographs and anecdotes which shall take the visitors on a ride down memory lane of that historic day which ignited a new revolution in India's mass transit history," the DMRC said in a statement.

This shall be a "permanent exhibition" and passengers using Delhi Metro network's largest interchange facility shall be able to visit this exhibition without any additional cost, officials said.

Mangu Singh, Managing Director, DMRC; Anandi Ramalingam, CMD, Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and other senior officials were also present during the event.

The i-ATS technology has been jointly developed by DMRC and BEL and is now being implemented on the Red Line. With this achievement, India will become one of the few countries in the world to have its own ATS product which can be implemented in other metros as well as railway systems, the statement said.

"The development of the i-ATS system is a major step towards the development of an indigenously built CBTC (Communication Based Train Control) based signalling technology for Metro railway since the i-ATS is an important sub system of the CBTC Signalling system," it said.