Will it be an effective transport solution or become the state’s white elephant?

On April 1, 2024, Bhubaneswar began constructing its metro corridor, which is expected to be ready in the next four years. Once completed, this 26 kilometre corridor will connect the Biju Patnaik International Airport to Trisulia square near Cuttack, touching around 18 major locations within the Bhubaneswar-Cuttack urban agglomeration. 

From officials to citizens, everyone is quite excited at the prospect of this development. However, questions remain on how to make this capital-intensive project work in a small city like Bhubaneswar. Experts have highlighted that keeping metro systems operationally and financially viable in a small city requires well thought-out strategies.

Shift in focus

It is not clear why Bhubaneswar, with a much smaller population and lower level of travel demand than the mega cities, have opted for this capital-intensive mode. 

The Union government’s Metro Rail Policy, 2017 mandates the formulation of a ‘Comprehensive Mobility Plan’ by any city aspiring to introduce metro services, to justify the need. 

Bhubaneswar’s own vision document Low-carbon Mobility Plan 2040 sought to upgrade the existing city bus services to rapid bus-based mass-transit system or bus rapid transit (BRT) network on the major arteries to cater to the travel demand by 2040. 

Even the Bhubaneswar Smart City Proposal and local government initiatives like Smart Janpath are expected to be designed to accommodate BRT as the future mode of mass transport. 

The city has already demonstrated transformative changes in its bus transport with its state-of-the-art public bus services, the ‘Mo-Bus’. It has improved the transit access points, along with around 200 new bus queue shelters, last mile accessibility through public bicycle stations and sharing at the bus stops and electric auto services, among others. 

These commuter-centric initiatives have helped create a brand for its efficient bus services that are now being expanded to other cities, including Rourkela.

Smaller cities’ metro challenge 

Bhubaneswar is expected to experience urban and economic growth as the health and information technology capital of eastern India, and accordingly, the city needs to scale up mass mode of transport. 

While opting for metro, Bhubaneswar needs to draw lessons from other metro systems as their big-ticket metro project will cost the state exchequer around Rs 6,000 crore, and more in coming days. How can this be kept financially sustainable at the level of ridership influenced by its population size and the nature of its working population? 

At present, there are around 710 kms of operational metro services spread across 13 cities in India, of which Delhi itself covers 54 per cent (around 389 km). 

Delhi is the only city with extensive metro network while other mega cities like Mumbai and Bangalore have plans to expand their services to have a network of 200-300 km for themselves. But rest of the cities have only single or maximum double corridors without a network. Ability of these corridors to cater to the actual journey requirements of commuters is extensively limited. Additionally, lower trip length (compare to mega cities) and cost of transfer penalty also negatively impacts the commuter’s choice for selecting this mode.

As a result, we can observe that the small, corridor-based metro projects in the second rung cities (that are more comparable to Bhubaneswar), have not succeeded in achieving the requisite ridership. Lucknow metro with 23 km corridor has achieved 8.6 per cent of projected ridership and Jaipur metro with 12 km corridor carries 7.6 per cent of its projected ridership. It is interesting to note that even mega cities like Delhi with a massive network could achieve only 79 per cent of the projected ridership. 

Additionally, almost all the metro systems in India are operating at huge operating losses. Operational loss of Delhi metro is around 15 per cent, whereas for Chennai it is around 42 per cent. How does Bhubaneswar plans to address these challenges?

Strategies to augment benefits

As the city administration has already decided to construct the metro system in Bhubaneswar, it is more important to focus on the methods and strategies to make this work, while maximising the benefits. 

During the project execution period that is expected to take about five years, Bhubaneswar needs to focus on the critical strategies that can increase the ridership and financial sustainability of the system. This planning and execution need to happen much in advance. 

It is encouraging that the city has already drafted its transit-oriented development (TOD) plan. This can be reimagined to ensure dense and mixed-use development in the radius of up to 400-800 metres around metro stations with highly accessible streets and restraints on parking supply. Provisions for creating TOD zones has already been provided in the Odisha Development Authorities (Planning and Building Standards) Rules 2020. So, the regulation is already there, if utilised well with fiscal instruments, this can generate the critical mass for metro which in turn can the metro economically and financially viable. 

Similarly, connecting the metro corridors with equally high frequency feeder network of bus routes, organised auto services and cycle tracks is equally important for efficient integration. A network assessment plan for each of these modes or combined modes need to be prepared and executed in a time bound manner by the time metro becomes operational.

Bhubaneswar is still a price sensitive city, and any public transport service need to be available in affordable price range to incentivise modal shift. This will require deliberate planning from the beginning.