Country’s first driver-less train flagged off

Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu and Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday flagged off the trial run of India’s first Unattended Train Operation (UTO) enabled train. The driver-less train will travel on trial from Mukundpur to Majlis Park.

The train is well equipped with advanced features. It arrived in Delhi last Thursday. “A total of 20 such train sets of Hyundai Rotem will be manufactured in South Korea’s Changwan by the end of this year while the remaining 61 are being manufactured at the Bharat Earth Movers plant in Bengaluru,” said a DMRC statement.

In addition, a green Receiving Sub Station (RSS) for the power requirements of the Majlis Park –Shiv Vihar corridor was also inaugurated at Mukundpur. The RSS has been entirely designed as a green structure with features such as solar power plant, rain water harvesting, sewage water treatment facilities etc. According to reports, the train is expected to be operational by the end of next year.

Since, these Metro trains are being introduced in Delhi Metro for the first time they will be put through stringent trials to ensure that smooth services are provided to the commuters after the commissioning of the lines.

During the trial runs, the interaction of the Metro train with physical infringements (civil structure) will be checked to ensure that there is no physical blockage during the movement of the train.

Later on, the new signalling technology to be implemented on this corridor – Communication Based Train Control (CBTC) will also undergo rigorous testing.

“In addition, the response of the train at different speed, brake function of the train and the interconnection with the Operations Control Centre (OCC) will also be monitored during the trials. The behaviour of the track system and the Over Head Electrification (OHE) will be checked repeatedly,” said DMRC.