The Ro-Ro way to transport trucks and decongest cities

When 30 loaded trucks were transported on a flat-wagon goods train from Garhi Harsaru station in Gurugram to Muradnagar in Uttar Pradesh on March 2, it marked the launch of a pilot project. The project was to decongest Delhi by avoiding the movement of trucks using an environment-friendly electrified railway network on a concept called RO-RO (Roll-On Roll-Off). In attendance was Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu who said Ro-Ro would have a direct impact on the ambient air quality, and the Capital would soon breathe cleaner air. The RO-RO service aims to reduce carbon emission and congestion as 66,000 diesel-guzzling trucks pass through Delhi and its adjoining areas every day on the way to Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh. Around 20,000 trucks, not servicing the NCR, enter the region to travel further. There are eight entry/exit routes in the NCR which will be utilised for the RO-RO service to take trucks off the road. It is a win-win situation for truckers as goods will be transported in a safe and faster way, saving cost on diesel and man-hours, besides reducing pollution levels.

The Railway Ministry launched the RO-RO service aiming to attract more freight and reduce carbon emission. In his 2016 budget speech, Prabhu had announced an action plan to expand the freight basket through either containerisation or new delivery models like Ro-Ro, which can provide a multimodal transport mix. Ro-Ro services in India were first started by the Konkan Railway and then by the East Coast Railway last year. By loading the heavy vehicles onto railway flat wagons at designated stations and unloading them outside the national Capital, particulate matter and dust can be curtailed. This initiative will also allow the movement of trucks in the daytime.

The movement was restricted earlier from 7 am to 11 pm. 

Truck operators can save toll taxes, fuel, and Environment Compensation Charge, which ranges between Rs 1,400 and Rs 2,600. The railway freight tariff would be more economical than the cost incurred on the road. It will also reduce road accidents and increase fuel efficiency by increasing the average speed on the road as a result of decongestion. There are 127 entry/exit points for the NCR, with nine major entry/exit points accounting for 75 per cent of commercial light- and heavy-duty truck traffic. However, this initiative needs the collaboration of many agencies to succeed, in particular, the Governments of Delhi and the adjoining states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan. Ro-Ro is an established concept the world over. Where there is criticality of space and diesel/petrol pollution, Ro-Ro is already in use. On the English Channel Tunnel connecting Great Britain to France, the connection is by rail and the road vehicles are loaded on one side to be carried to the other side providing a shining example of successful Ro-Ro operation. 

The Indian Railways (IR) requires just one-sixth of the corresponding energy consumed by road traffic. IR trains now run primarily on electricity which can be derived from modes other than oil, including new and renewable sources like wind and solar. By cutting out expensive oil imports, the Indian Railways is an ideal transportation mode. The Railways use just one-third of the ‘Right of Way’ as compared to big roads. This is another critical factor in India where population density and land scarcity are sticking points. Ideally, a 60-metre-wide corridor of Railways will provide as much throughput as compared to a 200-metre wide road. 

However, there are challenges in implementing the Ro-Ro scheme. With over 10 years of experience in directly handling railway operations in Delhi, I can say that the railway system in Delhi is greatly overloaded. It manifests in long delays of trains approaching Delhi right from 200 kilometres and beyond, due to lack of line capacity. Acute shortage of terminal capacity results in trains waiting outside stations of Delhi, at times for hours. The acute shortage of stabling lines and maintenance lines result in train rakes being shuttled from one corner of Delhi to the other merely for stabling and maintenance. When schemes such as Ro-Ro are launched, the existing rail movements are further slowed down due to rail network capacity constraints and hence the schemes do not become sustainable in the long run, and are dropped at the first instance. Therefore, Ro-Ro will require additional electrified double lines of about 200 kilometres along the existing railway corridors in Delhi. Since there is practically no land area left with Railways, the state governments in the NCR region will be required to provide land along the existing rail corridors. Ideally, for a double line, a width of 60 metres is required, but in critical areas, perhaps, even on a 11-metre-wide strip, a railway line can be laid. On rail corridors, vertical space after a height of 5 metres can be used for commercial and residential uses making provision of land even simpler.

The entire project costs are also lesser than that of other comparable decongestion projects. An electrified double railway line costs about Rs 10 crore per kilometre to build. We may contrast it with Rs 50 crore required for building one km of road with matching capacity, Rs 250 crores per km for elevated metro rail and Rs 500 crore per km for underground metro rail. In Ro-Ro’s case, the cost may be even less as freight movement requires no platforms, station buildings, public facilities like water, catering, and conveniences. Thus, the total cost of the project may be as low as Rs 2000 crore for all of Delhi, including the NCR areas. There is a strong case for extending concepts like RO-RO to other metro cities like Mumbai and Bengaluru too, considering that the air quality in Mumbai was worse than Delhi in the past few months.

The author retired as Additional Member, Railway Board.