The Chennai Metro Rail is arguably the largest construction project happening in Chennai at the moment. With the recent announcement by the Government of Tamil Nadu on its ambitious monorail project, Chennai Realty focuses on the impending success of Chennai Metro Rail and how it could transform the urban landscape of Chennai forever
The success of the Delhi Metro – an urban miracle – triggered off a rush to set up similar networks across urban India. Metros and major cities are opting for Mass Rapid Transit Systems (MRTS) as an effi cient mode to help ease transportation problems. Over half a dozen cities including Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi and Chandigarh will have operational metro systems over the next few years. The success of the Delhi Metro has convinced urban planners that this is a panacea for the urban transportation woes of millions of commuters. “The Delhi Metro with its 280 carriages transports 6,50,000 passengers daily and siphons 1.5 million commuter trips each day off the roads,” says Anuj Dayal, DMRC spokesperson. This translates into removing 1,650 buses from the roads, leading up to an annual saving of over `500 crore and more importantly, 30 percent less pollution. The fi nancial success of Delhi Metro, which used a combination of real estate development, parking and advertisement have made the metro a viable and popular system.
Why Chennai needs a Metro system?
Chennai, the fourth largest city in India with a population of over 9 million has an overwhelming population of vehicles at around 27 lakh. This means that the main arterial roads are handling far more than their designed capacity, leading to traffi c jams and congestion throughout the day. Though Chennai is served by a network of suburban railway network, the MRTS and the Metro Transport Corporation buses, it is not adequate to meet the growing transport needs of the public.Rail network and traffic
The rail infrastructure in the city runs along three main lines: North line from Chennai Central to Gummidipoondi (48 km, 16 stations) since 1985, West line from Chennai Central to Arakkonam (69 km, 29 stations), and Southern line from Beach to Tambaram (30 km, 18 stations). Apart from the above, a Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) on North-South corridor along Buckingham Canal from Chennai Beach to Velachery running a distance of 20 km also exists.Road network and traffic
The road layout in the metropolitan area is a radial pattern with three principal arterials: NH-5, NH-4, NH-45, to the north, west and south respectively. In addition, there are two more radial arterials, one along the coast on the northern side (Thiruvotriyur High Road) and another between NH-4 and NH-45 (Arcot Road).Rail trail
In 2007, the Government of Tamil Nadu created a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for implementing the Chennai Metro Rail Project. The SPV named Chennai Metro Rail Limited is a 50:50 joint venture between Government of India and Government of Tamil Nadu. With an total investment of over `15,000 crore, the project is scheduled for completion by 2015. Phase I of the project involves setting up a network of about 45km in the city across two corridors. Corridor-1: Washermanpet to Airport, would cover a distance of 23km of which 14.3km would be underground between Washermanpet and Saidapet via Mannadi, High Court, Central, New Government Hospital, LIC, Thousand Lights, Gemini, Teynampet and Chamiers Road and 8.7 km of elevated section running from Little Mount to Airport via Guindy, Alandur, OTA and Meenambakkam. Corridor-2: Chennai Central to St Thomas Mount, would cover a distance of 22km of which 9.7km would be underground between Chennai Central and Thirumanagalam via Egmore, Nehru Park, Kilpauk Medical College, Pachaiappa’s College, Shenoy Nagar, Anna Nagar East and Anna Nagar East. The elevated section would be 12.3km in length running from Koyembedu to St Thomas Mount via CMBT, Arumbakkam, Vadapalani, Ashok Nagar, KK Nagar, SIDCO and AlandurChennai Traffic Forecast
Advantages of Chennai Metro Rail System
Metro Rail System is recognised as a modern, reliable, safe and environment-friendly mode of mass transportation.Several global cities including Singapore, Tokyo, Shanghai, London and most recently Dubai have adopted the
Metro Rail System which has served them to remain competitive moving millions of people in and out of the Central
CBD. Chennai Metro Rail once completed will offer following advantages to Chennai: reduce traffi c as it will take
out as many 3000 buses off the roads of Chennai; reduce pollution by as much as
The fare structure
Chennai Metro Rail plans to make it affordable for the commonman to use the Metro for his daily commuting needs. Though the exact
fare structure will be announced closer to the launch date,
the following fare structure has been recommended for
implementation – 30 percent; reduce commuting time by
50-75 percent between destinations; linkage with other forms
of transport like bus, rail and air; can carry over 30,000 passengers
per hour per direction, which is three times more than any other systems.
Employment Generation
Chennai Metro Rail is likely to generate a direct employmentof around 50 skilled people for every kilometre of track,
which translates into a skilled workforce of about 2,255 people.
Indirect employment would be four times as much and would
translate into creating a livelihood for another 9,000 people.
Facilities through property development
revenue forits operations. Some of the facilities that would be developed would include completely
air-conditioned underground railway stations, automatic fare collection system, electronic display
and announcement systems, shopping malls, space for parking, provision for
bus feeder services and washroom facilities. This will include creating a leasable space of over 4.3 million
sqft spread over various underground stations on both corridors. Such property development is also likely to
generate employment potential for another 6,000 people directly over the next few years. Apart from property
development at Metro stations and depots, it is possible to raise resources through leasing of
parking rights at stations, advertisements on trains and tickets, advertisements within stations and
parking lots, advertisements on viaducts, columns and other metro structures, cobranding rights to
corporate, fi lm shootings and special events on metro premises. The property development will be
undertaken on joint venture basis though in some cases it may be by outright purchase of the land.
The estimated property development cost including land cost is `1,136 crore. The estimated income to
CMRL from property development is likely to be around `276 crore starting from the year 2014-15.
Environmental impact
Chennai Metro Rail is envisaged to be a green development. Hence though there might be someshort-term environmental impact by way of cutting of trees, CMRL has been mandated to plant
10 trees for every tree cut down. They have already planted more than 5,000 saplings and will
carry out planting of another 10,000 saplings by the end of the year. Once the metro system is
fully operational, one rake of metro system per trip is expected to remove 16 buses/300 cars/600
two wheelers from the road, thereby considerably reducing the traffic congestion in the road
and less carbon emission and contributing to reduction in air pollution.
To sum up, once completed the Chennai Metro Rail will provide the people of Chennai with a fast,
reliable, convenient, effi cient, modern and economical mode of public transport, which when integrated with
other forms of public and private transport will go onto making Chennai a truly global metropolis!
