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Many trains and stops could go in reimagined Indian Railways post-covid timetable
Key highlights of zero-based timetable
- Around 500 regular trains will be discontinued and 10,000 stops across the Indian Railways’ network will be erased in a new timetable for operations that will be adopted once the pandemic ends and services return to normal.
- Indian railways expect to increase their annual earnings by more than Rs 1,500 crore through this new “zero-based timetable”.
- According to Railway ministries projections the estimated extra earning will come without having to raise fares or other charges – it will be a byproduct of the timetable and will happen as a result of operational policy tweaks
- The new timetable paves the way to run 15 per cent more freight trains on exclusive corridors at higher speeds. The average speed of passenger trains is projected to increase by around 10 per cent across the network.
- The timetable works on the premise that the existence of every train and stop must be justified based on organisational goals of providing transportation with optimum and efficient utilisation of the available resources
Why is it named as a zero-based timetable?
It is named so because it seeks to re-imagine operations from scratch, and has been developed by the Railways along with experts from IIT-Bombay.
Source: Indian Express
