| India's sky bus awaits policy, investment push |
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| By Lola Nayar |
Margao (Goa), Jan 17, 2005 (IANS) Is sky bus metro a railway or a tramway? This issue is holding up the Konkan Railway Corporation's plans to seek private investment to roll out its patented sky bus mass transport system that has completed its safety trial runs here.
"The railway ministry has to take a view on what (legislation) is to be applied to the sky bus - whether railway or tramway - to help the state government take a decision and implement this project which offers a viable answer to public transport," said B. Rajaram, managing director of Konkan Railway.
"We are ready to go commercial with the sky bus except for policy constraints," Rajaram told reporters who were given a taste of the hassle-free ride in the indigenously designed and built coaches travelling at 45 km an hour.
Konkan Railway has set up the first prototype project with a 1.6 km track near the railway station here to demonstrate the sky bus's viability and for future
research and development.
An accident during a trial run on Sep 25 last year, when an operator fell down and died, delayed the project for over two months.
But now it is back on track with even those who were in the sky bus during the accident willing to vouch for its safety and efficacy to carry as many as 300 people at a speed of 70 km an hour.
The project has been given the go-ahead by the Commissioner for Railway Safety, who inspected the safety runs.
Compared to tramways and ropeways found abroad, Rajaram said the sky bus technology is based on the two rail system of railways. The major difference being that the coach is suspended instead of riding over rails.
Besides handling passenger traffic, Rajaram said, the sky bus has multiple uses for handling freight and even container traffic at ports and even mountain regions, much the same as Konkan Railway's roll-on-roll-off service for trucks and containers.
The pilot project is a unique
example of how 34 small and big companies collaborated with Konkan Railway, set up by Indian Railways in partnership with the state governments of Goa, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala 15 years ago, to develop the sky bus.
The sky bus has been patented in the US for its unique qualities.
Konkan Railway has joined hands with global consultants PriceWaterhouseCooper to promote the project and to tie up with private investors able to help set up and commercialise the project on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis.
"We plan to license the technology to private investors keen to set up the commercial project on BOT basis. PriceWaterhouseCooper is marketing the sky bus for a fixed fee," said Rajaram. "So far 12 companies including Tata, Jindal and Punj Lloyd have responded to their offer of technology licence."
A prerequisite for qualification is net worth of over Rs.1.5 billion ($34.4 million) as the project implementation is expected to cost Rs.500
million ($11.4 million) a kilometre. The technology licences are to be awarded later this month.
The technology transfer would entail a one-time royalty payment of Rs.50 million ($1.14 million) a kilometre to Konkan Railway, said Rajaram, who is scheduled to hand over charge by month end and has gifted his patent on sky bus to the nation to be held by Konkan Railway.
According to Rajaram, an investment of Rs.5 billion ($114.6 million) could help set up an urban mass rapid transport system capable of handling around six million commuters daily.
"We plan to license technology for each city to one company. We hope to soon see some cities like Pune taking the lead in adopting the sky bus technology as foreign technologies are four-times more expensive," said Rajaram.
Pune has been strongly supporting sky bus, while Maharashtra is the first state to approve the technology for use as public transport.
Successful commercialisation in India could open the
floodgates overseas as several countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have expressed interest in setting up sky bus metros in places like Makkah, Medina and Dubai.
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