Suburban rail in India

Suburban rail, urban rail, commuter rail, or regional rail, plays a major role in the public transport system of many of India's major cities. Suburban rail is defined as a rail service between a central business district and suburbs, a conurbation or other locations that draw large numbers of people on a daily basis. The trains providing such services may be termed suburban trains. Trains on the Mumbai Suburban Railway, Chennai Suburban Railway, Kolkata Suburban Railway and Hyderabad MMTS are referred to as "local trains" or "locals". Kolkata Suburban Railway is the second oldest after Mumbai Suburban Railway and has the largest network in the entire country.

Suburban rail in India operates on lines shared with other passenger and freight trains (like the Lucknow-Kanpur Suburban Railway) or a combination of dedicated suburban lines and lines for long distance trains (like the Mumbai Suburban Railway). The infrastructure in India is owned by Indian Railways and usually operated by one or more of the railway zones of Indian Railways.

In some cities of India, the opening of rapid transit systems have led to a decline in use of the Suburban rail system.

Suburban trains that handle commuter traffic are mostly electric multiple units (EMUs). They usually have nine or twelve coaches and sometimes even fifteen to handle rush hour traffic.indian railway One unit of an EMU train consists of one power car and two general coaches. Thus a nine coach EMU is made up of three units having one power car at each end and one at the middle. The rakes in some of the suburban rails run on direct current and others on alternating current.^[1]

Ridership on India's suburban railways has risen from 1.2 million in 1970-71 to 4.4 billion in 2012-13. The suburban railways of Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai account for about 7.1% of the Indian Railways 20819.3 km network, but contribute 53.2% of all railway passengers.^[2]

Systems

Many cities have own dedicated suburban networks to cater to commuters. The suburban rail systems in Hyderabad, Pune, Barabanki-Lucknow, Lucknow-Kanpur and Bangalore do not have dedicated suburban tracks but share tracks with long distance trains. The suburban rail system of Chennai and Mumbai has dedicated as well tracks shared with long distance trains.

A suburban rail system is planned for Ahmedabad.^[3] New suburban service has started between Goa and Karwar. Another notable suburban rail is coming up for the Metropolitan Region of Trivandrum City which will extend northwards to Chengannur, a town which is around 160 km from Trivandrum.^[4]

References

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