Future of Indian Railways 2050
Indian Railways will have to transform so significantly by
2050 that not only will it be recognizable from its current operations but also
most of its current assets will get replaced completely.
We need to understand the drivers that will make this
transformation an imperative.
As per the UNDP Regional Human Development Report,
India’s working population (people in the age group of 15 to 64 years) will be
over a billion by 2050, which will be the largest workforce in the world. This
workforce will be highly mobile. In addition, it is expected that over 70% of
the population will be urban by 2050 and would have a higher mobility
requirement. Given the load carrying capacity of various transportation options
and their impact on the environment, railways would have to shoulder the bulk
of this massive transportation requirements.
The second key trend driving railways is technological
transformations. Mass transportation will be completely transformed in the next
30 years with technologies such as high speed rails (bullet trains), hyperloops
(currently being tested in California and Russia among other places), Internet
of Things, solar energy, large scale electrification of the economy and moving
away from dependence on oil based technologies etc, driving this
transformation.
In addition, railways will face competition from other modes
of transportation such as road transportation, riverine transportation, coastal
shipping and air transportation. Each of these transport systems will become
much more efficient, faster and autonomic, implying that they will be managed
by computers and would not require dedicated operators such as drivers, pilots
etc. Hence these transportation systems will also become cheaper and in
addition, will be significantly less polluting than what they are now.
What that would imply
for Indian railways is that it would have to start adopting newer systems of
mass transportation, that would transport people and goods much more
efficiently and at speeds that are an order of magnitude higher. Such systems
would require complete overhaul of the railways as we see them today, with even
the tracks requiring to be changed and perhaps even getting replaced by other
locomotion enablers, as in the case of Hyperloops, which would require tubes
rather than rails for locomotion. Clearly, railways too will become autonomous,
requiring no train drivers, station masters,
manned crossings etc. Such a transformation would require a completely
new signaling system and railways infrastructure, including automated gates at
road crossings, systems that talk to the surroundings such as to incoming
trains, vehicles at crossings and perhaps even airplanes, so that not only do
the trains travel faster and safer, but are also able to coordinate with modes
of transportation that passengers would need to use or that cargo would need to
use. For example, if bulk of the passengers are going from one city to another,
primarily to take a long distance flight, then the train would need to be in
touch with the airplane company, to ensure that delays, If any, get factored
into the dynamic rescheduling.
Indian railways in 2050, would also be a different
ecosystems from the current one that is dominated by a single behemoth. Indian
railways in 2050, would be corporate dominated ecosystem, with perhaps the
current Railways Board transforming into a corporation. It would have all kinds
of business models with private players managing their own coaches in a larger
train, to running entire trains and owning the linear assets (such as railways
tracks or the tubes for hyperloop), to owning railway stations. It would not be
unthinkable to have airline companies expanding into railways to provide
seamless travel experience to passengers
and cargo.
In addition, Indian Railways in 2050, will not be limited to
the borders of India. It would connect with the economies in the east, it would
connect with the economies in Central Asia and would perhaps stretch all the
way to Europe, in partnership with railways in other countries.
Indian Railways will also start generating significant
revenues from non-ticketing sources such as onboard retailing through digital
retail, monetization of non-tangible assets, and leveraging technology. It will
have a very diversified portfolio of cargo and will not be limited to bulk
cargo such as coal (which anyways will have a very limited role by 2050).
Indian railways in 2050 will clearly be unrecognizably
different from today’s railways, to be able to shoulder the responsibilities
and challenges of the people workforce and cargo of 2050.
