A focus on increasing the rail capacity for freight and passengers, remodelling more trains for short-distance passenger traffic, and more electrification are some of the strategies that the Indian Railways is adopting, said Girish Kumar Pillai, Member-Traffic, Railway Board, while speaking at the release of an IEA-UIC report, ‘The Future of Rail’.

The future of rail depends on how it meets the rising transport demand and increasing pressure from competing transport modes, said the IEA (International Energy Agency) and UIC (International Union of Railways) report.

The Railways is following a strategy to meet the high unmet demand. “Building rail transport capacity has a high time lag due to longer gestation period in building infrastructure projects and in land acquisition. So priority is given to augment the capacity of trunk routes,” Pillai said.

In India, passenger services take two-thirds of rail capacity and one-third goes to freight. In terms of revenues, it is the reverse, with freight accounting for two-thirds of revenue.

Focus on freight

Pillai said Indian Railways needs to increase its freight traffic, which is what it is focusing on, so that Railways can serve the economy better. Demand for rail freight movement is limitless, he said, as there is enough space for growth for all modes of transport, including inland waterways, coastal shipping, air and road transport.

“There is no shortage of demand. The challenge is to keep pace with the demand. Hopefully, two freight corridors would be in place over the next one and half years, which will make a lot of difference to containers, coal, and port traffic,” he added.

“Our emphasis is to improve the short-distance passenger traffic, by improving the short-distance trains that we call the mainline electric multiple units or distributed power trains,” Pillai said, adding that electrification and trains that accelerate and decelerate better are also in focus.

Electrification

Earlier, Railway Board Chairman VK Yadav said Railways is focussing on electrification so that it can meet its electrification demand domestically, instead of importing crude.

Rail activity in India is set to grow more than any other country, with passenger movements in India reaching 40 per cent of global movement, according to the Future of Rail report. Rail activity, measured in billion passenger km, in India is among the highest in the world, second only to China for passenger movements and fourth for freight movements.