Mumbai: Monorail upgrade in the offing

Mumbai: The frequency of monorail services between Chembur-Wadala-Jacob Circle is expected to improve as the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is getting new age monorail trains later in 2023.

According to an MMRDA official, the new trains will have fewer mechanical failures and will fare better on safety standards, besides being more spacious with 10% more passenger carrying capacity. As the new monorail sets are expected to have far less mechanical failures, the maintenance cost will also reduce significantly.

Trials will be conducted once the new trains are delivered before they are made available for commuters.

The first train will arrive only in the second half of 2023 and thereafter every three months, three train sets will be delivered by Medha Servo Drives in Hyderabad which bagged the contract in March 2021. BHEL, Titagarh Wagons and Medha Servo Drives-SMH Rail of Malaysia were the bidders for the contract.

The MMRDA had placed an order for 10 monorail rakes to improve the frequency and gradually phase out the existing problematic sets.

Currently, there is one train plying every 25 on the 20 km route, with the new trains, the frequency is likely to go up to one train every 10 minutes.

The earlier train manufacturer - Scomi Engineering was mandated to supply 15 trains but delivered only 11. Of these, the MMRDA is operating and maintaining India’s only monorail in Mumbai with only seven rakes. Two of them are always kept on standby, hence, making only five rakes available to ply between Chembur and Jacob Circle (Sant Ghadge Maharaj Chowk). The rest do not have parts as they were cannibalised to keep the limited set of fleet moving.