When Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Shinzo Abe jointly break the ground at Sabarmati/Ahmedabad for the 508 km Ahmedabad-Mumbai high speed rail (HSR) project today, they will not merely consecrate a high velocity rail corridor. They will open a window of immense new opportunities for India to dream and build bold and big as an inflexion point for the country’s vital infrastructure to grasp new technologies and techniques.

The purpose-built train corridor between Bandra-Kurla complex in Mumbai and Sabarmati/Ahmedabad, envisaged to be built on 1,435 mm standard gauge, costing about Rs 2 crore/km, will initially run 35 trains aday each way (carrying 36,000 travellers) rising to 105 trains a day (186,000 passengers – both ways) by 2053. The journey by through trains will be completed in 2.07 hours, and in 2.58 hours on trains stopping at each of the ten stations enroute. Conjuring up an image of an exorbitantly expensive infrastructure mode, HSR, commonly termed “bullet train”, running on dedicated lines at 250 km per hour or higher – often up to 350 kmph – has almost everywhere been initially dubbed as elitist.

Much like it was done for the Shinkansen in Japan, TGV in France, and later in China or even in UK and US, a general query is posed: isn’t HSR in India a case of muddled priorities? Why do we need such a capitalguzzling project, when many other pressing schemes need resources? What appears elitist today may be a common artefact tomorrow or the day after. A veritable agent of change that transformed man’s mental geography, his social and economic universe, the steam engine was derided and lampooned.

The automobile and recently the mobile phone didn’t take long to become almost a way of life. We witness today pervasive onslaught of the internet, of rapid increase in air travel or hawaai chappalwalas riding hawaai jahaaj! Timidity has traditionally held back India from embracing cutting edge technology in good time: its steam engine manufacturing unit at Chittaranjan came up just when the world was consigning steam engines to the museum, Britain had scrapped its last steam locomotive production factory, and America had switched over to diesel traction.

The country dithered for years in regard to the Delhi metro, delaying its introduction for years. Some selected railway stations were well on way to be transformed into “world class” terminals; strangely, IR moth-balled the project, to the detriment of its services. Let us get the perspective right. India’s first “bullet” train corridor being executed in collaboration with Gujarat and Maharashtra states, in no way crowds out any of IR’s other projects and schemes.

Japan’s offer of the $ 12b assistance at highly concessional terms (loan repayable over 50 years at 0.1% interest) is not transferable to other projects. Much like IR’s exclusive freight corridors under construction, high speed passenger corridors embody potential gains of new technologies and newer operational techniques conducive to much higher productivity, efficiency, and economies. Today, there is tectonic shift being made also for expediting transit especially of high value, short product-life cargo, for which entrepreneurs in Europe, US and China have been improvising high speed equipment and infrastructure.

What Maruti helped accomplish in the automotive sector, transforming the paradigm, also catalysing state-of-the-art auto components production in India, HSR network may well provide a fillip to Make in India, to begin with, for high-tech components used in coaches, tracks, and signalling as well as construction, maintenance and servicing. A few selected high density HSR corridors are amply justified for a mature mobility mix, to unlock an immense hidden value, and for the country not to be left out of essential technology upgrade.

A nation of India’s size, potential and aspirations has to envision its destiny, sometimes with what may appear irrational exuberance. More intensive urbanisation as well as rising incomes would lead to higher travel propensity. It is inconceivable that IR would continue to deny itself a peep into rapid technological and commercial transformation that railway systems world over experience. Concerns over depleting fossil fuel reserves, climate change, overcrowded airports, delayed flights and congested roads have conspired with the HSR technology alternative. Energy-efficient and environmentally benign, a high speed electric train emits 1/8th and 1/5th of carbon dioxide vs automobiles and airplanes per passenger km respectively.

A double track rail line has more than thrice the passenger carrying capacity of a 6-lane highway while requiring less than half the land. With a 2,500 km network, providing high frequency – up to 14 trains per hour – the Shinkansen ever since its inception on the 550 km purpose-built TokyoOsaka route in 1964 has maintained a unique record of no fatal accident for 50 years. So also the TGV, which has been accident-free for 30 years or more. HSR does not only divert passengers from road and air; it also generates new class of passengers.

It generally helps bring settlements 500 km apart within two hours of each other. Designed to be faster than a car, while also more frequent, cheaper, and more convenient than a plane, HSR has been a catalyst for economic growth, a stimulus for the development of satellite towns, helping alleviate migration to metropolises. Providing services from and to city centres, HSR serves important centres en route, providing value for time through express and easy access to tier-II and -III cities. Myopic it is to ignore the enormous spin-off of leapfrogging technologies. Today, there is hardly any large railway system without HSR.

TGV in France operating on some routes every 5 minutes as a preferred mode is hailed as the real “low cost” carrier. Shinkansen in Japan has emerged as an invaluable part of country’s mobility and economy. China already has 22,000 km passenger dedicated lines, longest for any country; less than a decade ago, it had no HSR. Now its high speed trains move twice as many passengers as its airlines, and the demand keeps growing. HSR fares are normally higher than classic rail services for increased speed, reliability and comfort. HSR stations are as a rule as comfortable and attractive as airports. The Shinkansen fare includes a surcharge that doubles the fare for conventional trains. HSR fares in China are around thrice the conventional train fares.

Revenues from fare box collections are appreciably buttressed, in particular by commercial developments in and around HSR stations. Japan’s JR East Group operates over 40 hotels, offers some 177,000 retail locations at stations, and earns advertising revenues from 17 million daily passengers. Just about the time fifty years ago that Japan pioneered the world’s first 550 km high speed “bullet” train corridor between Tokyo and Osaka, India with all its limitations of resources and technology demonstrated its grit and ambition by breaking the 100 km/h speed barrier, ushering in Rajdhani Express on sub-continental routes, linking Delhi first with Kolkata and then Mumbai. The upper limit of IR’s “fast” trains – Rajdhanis, Shatabdis, Durontos – has remained limited to 130 km/h, in effect, averaging about 80 km/h.

It is reassuring that Railway Minister Piyush Goyal feels confident of commissioning the HSR project a year ahead of schedule, by 2022. IR needs to keep the other six designated HSR corridors on radar, feasibility studies for which have already been completed. Additional detailed techno-economic studies strangely awarded by IR for 350 km/h trains corridors on arterial routes along the golden quadrilateral and its diagonals are prima facie ill conceived.

As a thumb-rule, for high density routes of 200-800 km, airlines cannot match HSR in terms of total journey time inclusive of first/last-mile connectivity with airports/stations and ancillary security checks, etc.; below 200 km, road transport has an edge; beyond 800 km, air option is better placed.

(The writer is Senior Fellow, Asian Institute of Transport Development and former CMD, Container Corporation of India.)