By Praveen Dwivedi
New Delhi, Apr 18 (IANS): Work on the 82 km-long Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) from Delhi's Sarai Kale Khan to Meerut in Uttar Pradesh is in full swing and the viaduct of the around 17 km corridor has been completed.
The RRTS, India's first of its kind project undertaken by the National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC), is being developed to provide high speed and sustainable mobility solutions in the national Capital Region (NCR).
"As of the new development in the project, we have completed viaduct for around 17 km and many other technical developments have taken place in the first phase of the project between Delhi (Sarai Kale Khan) to Meerut, which will be 82 km long corridor," said Puneet Vats, as senior officer in NCRTC.
The development of Delhi-Meerut RRTS corridor, which is estimated to be completed by 2025, will reduce the travel time by 40 to 60 minutes.
Replying to IANS as to how RRTS will reduce travel time between cities under Delhi-NCR and how it would be different from the existing metro rail services, Vats said rapid metro can run faster than metro rail.
"We are at the initial stage but overall aim is to provide seamless travel experience to commuters through multi-modal integration with railway stations, Inter-State Bus Terminals (ISBT), IGI Airport and the Delhi Metro lines at various RRTS stations." he added.
H"Maximum speed of rapid rail is up to 180 km per hour, whereas, the operational speed is 160 km per hour. Second, the commuters will find all the travelling connectivity at one platform. RRTS's platforms will be designed in such a way that it will be connected will multiple resources (railway station, metro, buses, etc.) of travelling at one place."
One coach of each rapid rail will be reserved for business class which will be accessible through a special lounge at the platform. Like metro rail, one coach in every train will be reserved for women passengers as well.
The Delhi-Meerut RRTS corridor will have a total of 24 stations and will be elevated for around 70.5 km, with 11.5 km of its stretch underground.
Apart from Sarai Kale Khan, there will be two other stations in Delhi, New Ashok Nagar and Anand Vihar, both will be integrated with Sarai Kale Khan.
An elevated portion of 9.22 km and 4.28 km underground will be part of the RRTS corridor in Delhi with the Sarai Kale Khan and New Ashok Nagar stations to be above and the Anand Vihar station to be below the ground, said officials.