- IDEA OF FULLY AC MUMBAI LOCALS
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* Making all Mumbai local trains ac appears to be an impractical idea today. It must be noted that
....(1) passengers opting for Ola/Uber is a very small fraction of paxs travelling by non ac trains/bus.
....(2)...
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Ola/Uber give ultimate convenience to paxs, like lifting from home, mobile payment thru app, which IR shall not be able to match
....(3) Ola/Uber cabs very competitively priced (much cheaper than normal taxi),
....(4) They are giving huge cash backs/ offers to commuters (which are causing losses to the companies) which is difficult for IR.
* AC local trains are very complex as compared to current non ac trains.
....(1)Cost of ac locals rake is double,
....(2) the energy cost (air conditioning) shall make fuel about 1.5 times ,
....(3) maintenance cost shall be very high
....(4) Carrying capacity of ac locals shall be much lower than non ac locals, the "super crush dense load" carried in non ac locals cannot be .........carried in ac locals, else the passengers may be suffocated in closed ac coaches.
....(5) as a result of above costing per passenger may be more doubled.
....(6) More over, the practical feasibility of commercial operation of ac local trains is yet to be confirmed.
* About 80 lac people travel Mumbai locals every day and hardly 10% may opt for costly ac travel.
* Even if the cost of ac travel is competitively priced (no profit no loss), the figure may hardly touch 25-30%.
* How shall the majority of commuters travel then? Congested Mumbai roads cannot take any additional load.
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OPTIONS FOR INTRODUCING AC TRAVEL IN MUMBAI LOCALS
* Better way out is to replace first class coaches in Mumbai Locals with ac coaches.
* Mumbai local rakes are being augmented from 12 coaches to 15 coaches. AC coaches could be attached during augmentation. In this way poor people shall not be deprived of low cost travel and the well-off shall get comfortable ac travel.
* If passenger response is very good, the proportion of ac coaches may be increased in the future.
* May be Indian Economy grow fast in coming years, it may be possible that after a long time (15-20years) Fully ac locals with reasonable pricing (no profit no loss or little bit subsidised) may become a reality.