The expansion of public transport is urgently needed in many Indian cities, but the construction of metros and rapid transit systems, which has been the main focus so far, is often facing serious limitations: Construction takes a long time and is very cost-intensive. For rapid progress, especially in various medium-sized cities, the Indian central government is now giving priority to another transport system.
A political decision
At the end of October 2020, the government decided to comprehensively promote the introduction of battery trolley buses on dedicated routes, usually on elevated alignments but also at grade. This is to offer a serious alternative to the construction of metro lines. The investment costs of such BRT trolleybus systems are estimated to be only one tenth of those of new metro systems and only one third of those of light rail systems. In addition, the systems are much more easily scalable due to the combined shared use with conventional bus routes in the feeder – the construction of integrated systems is much faster than with alternative transport systems. A statement to this effect was published by the Secretary of the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs.
By Indian-standards medium-sized cities are defined by a population of up to one million inhabitants. But suburbs in the even larger metropolitan areas of such cities are also eligible to the new program. Any lines with less than 15,000 passengers “Peak Hour Per Direction Traffic” (PHPDT) are considered suitable.