The much awaited driverless trains on the Delhi Metro line 7 from Majlis Park to Shiv Vihar started with their trial runs on Thursday.
Flagged off by DMRC Managing Director Dr Mangu Singh, trial runs were started on the 6.5-km stretch between the Shakurpur and Mayapuri elevated section of the upcoming 59-km long Majlis Park - Shiv Vihar corridor (line 7) of Phase 3, also known as the Pink line.
According to the DMRC officials, the new line will operate on Unattended Train Operations. “The new trains, with extremely high levels of automation, will now undergo rigorous trials between these stations to ensure that they are ready for smooth operations after the commissioning of the corridor. Initially, train operators will run the trains, but gradually, driverless operations (on the UTO mode) will become possible.
During these trials, the interface of the Metro train will be checked to ensure that there is no physical infringement with civil infrastructure during the movement of the train on the track. Moreover, various sub-systems of coaches shall be tested,” said the DMRC official.
The new line will be installed with the latest signaling technology known as Communication Based Train Control. The response of the train at different speeds, braking 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.
Apart from these technical provisions, this particular section from Shakurpur to Mayapuri will consist of 5 elevated stations i.e. Shakurpur, Punjabi Bagh West, ESI Hospital, Rajouri Garden and Mayapuri and will have interchange station at Rajouri Garden.
Talking about the challenges faced by the Delhi Metro during the construction of this section of the Pink line, the senior DMRC official said that traffic at various points on the Ring Road had to be managed while working on this section.
Apart from the construction challenges, land acquisition at Mayapuri and Punjabi Bagh also posed as a bottleneck during construction. Major utility diversions also had to be carried out between Shakurpur and Mayapuri, like relocation of a Box Drain near Mayapuri. The other challenge was the acquisition of the jhuggi land. Since this section traverses through 228 jhuggis, in 2012, the DMRC had requested the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement (DUSIB) to take necessary action for relocation or rehabilitation of these jhuggis.
The mentioned areas were handed over to the DMRC after the DUSIB had relocated all the jhuggis by mid-2016. The work on the entire section was completed except for the jhuggi area approximately 85 mts at Punjabi Bagh and approximately 105 mts at Mayapuri. Work on these stretches could be taken up only after the land was made available to the DMRC in mid-2016 thereby posing as a challenge in completing the work.