Initially the supply of the first ac suburban rake was inordinately delayed. After the first AC suburban rake was supplied, it was gathering dust for several months and its trial was getting delayed for unknown reasons. Still there is no regular commercial operation of ac suburban rakes on the route, so nothing could be said about the patronage of these costly trains Rs 7-10 crore per coach instead to Rs 4.5 crore per coach for non ac emu.
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Many grey areas are there like practical feasibility of train operation of...
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suburban trains with automatic closing doors and its acceptability to public. Fare structure has not been decided and patronage to ac suburban trains (very much dependent on fare structure) is uncertain. Now deciding to go for 47 nos AC suburban rakes (i.e. 546 coaches) for MUTP-III!
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Why inordinate delay in manufacture of first ac rake ?
why inordinate delay in testing the rake to confirm technical feasibility ?
why inordinate delay in deciding fare structure for the proposed ac rakes ?
why jump into decision to procure 47 ac emu rakes under MUTP ?
what if the ac rakes with automatic closing doors are practically not feasible for these crowded trains?
what if people reject the emu fare structure and continue to opt for the highly subsidised non ac emus and there is low traffic for ac emus?
what if due to lower frequency of ac locals, people avoid the ac emus.
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Since non ac emus are highly subsidised and IR does not want to subsidise ac emus, the ac travel may be about 8-10 times costlier than non ac emus(monthly pass). Frequency of ac locals shall be lesser than non ac ones in order to ensure better occupancy, which is highly undesirable as Mumbai public absolutely habitually does not like to wait longer for suburban trains. So it would be better to equipp all emus with 1 or more ac coaches depending upon the demand, instead of non ac first class accomodation.