FEASIBILITY REPORT OF THE CIRCULAR RAILWAY SYSTEM IN KARACHI

Overview:

Purpose of study:

Millions of people take on the treacherous roads of Karachi daily to reach their desired destinations. Some people (those who can afford it) use richshaws and taxis or cabs whose drivers charge the fares as much as they want while others take busses and Qingqis and we know how dangerous those possible death traps prove out to be specially with their old and poorly maintained engines, bad drivers with even worst attitudes, continuously raising fares and over-crowded vehicles.

The new and improved railway system will once again enable Karachites to move freely and easily throughout the city at affordable prices and unparalleled service. This new service will once again help to restore Karachi back to its glory days apart from the comfort and ease that this railway system will provide for the locals of this city it will promote tourism for this city. The need for this railway system cannot be over emphasized because it is going to connect the whole city from Baldia to Jinnah International Airport. The initial plan proposed is as follows:

Proposed by CDGK

Provision of public transport / mass transit facilities is a key issue in Karachi, the largest cosmopolitan city of the country with a population of 16 million and urban sprawl of about 3,500 sq. km. It was recorded that the number of vehicles in the city had increased to 1.8 million in 2007 while the numbers of trips were 24.5 million per day. About 90% of the work force uses some form of public transport in the city. Although accurate information is not available, it is estimated that around 12,399 buses (mostly old buses) of different sizes and shapes ply in Karachi on around 267 routes which overlap considerably with each other.

Through a number of studies it has been established that the existing public transport system cannot serve the existing and incremental demand in an effective manner and there are a number of problems associated with the system including unnecessary travel delays, severe traffic congestion, economic and financial losses and environmental problems. The daily commuters face great hardships due to poor quality of service, sub-standard vehicles and clumsy routes. Environmental degradation due to noise and air pollution and vehicular exhausts is touching alarming levels in the city.

Challenges:Like any mega project the new railway system faces alot of problems aswell some of the main challenges are as follows:

• Mass relocation of the public living in the path of the proposed railway line especially the slum areas or ‘katchi aabadis’

• Theft of the railway line by the public

• Availability of funds

• Availability of power and fuel

• Shifting of the mindset of the general public from their conventional means of transport to the new railway system

• Management of the ticketing and the funds generated by the new system

• Minimizing the damage to the existing environment when installing the new railway system

So basically these challenges and many more can all be summed up into four main categories:

• Economic

• Land use

• Social and health

We will discuss all of these separately

Economic:

This is a mega project because Karachi itself is a mega city and a project like this throughout the city for the ease of management this project will be completed in two stages stage one will cost about 370 million US $ and stage 2 will cost 540 million US $

Land Use:

A mega project like this requires alot of land and for that alot of people will have to be relocated and it is not an easy job to move thousands of people from one place to another and it almost always faces rejection by the public so diplomatic steps need to be taken to ensure the smooth and easy running of this operation.

Social and Health:

Another huge challenge that the new system will face are the social and health challenges because the people are so used to the existing mode of travel that they are going to need huge incentives to transfer from their regular means of transport to the new railway system and also a railway track

throughout the city would have to be properly planned in order to prevent health and safety issues as well as to minimize the environmental hazards.

ContextThis two part feasibility study is the first step in investigating public transport improvements for the city of Karachi; mainly for the great amount of traffic on the roads. We have suggested the concept of a regional light rail network following The State Government’s decision to not prioritize the Long Term Transport Master Plan. We believe that the option of light rail is cheaper and quicker to deliver more effective transportation by enabling the region to sustainably grow in terms of population and employment.

The feasibility study (this document) builds upon policies and priorities produced by all levels of government; including Local, State and Federal. Together these documents set a framework for land use and transportation planning allowing us to improve for future years. It is important that work is completed in alignment with these documents and aims to assist in achieving government strategic outcomes.

Guidelines for Railways are applicable to activities typically conducted by rail infrastructure operators, dedicated to passenger and freight transport. The document is organized into two main areas, under the name of rail operations, covering construction and maintenance of rail infrastructure as well as operation of rolling stock, such as locomotives, rail cars, and, locomotive maintenance activities, including engine services, and other mechanical repair and maintenance of locomotive and railcars.

The population explosion due to rapid urbanization in the Karachi city is the key element in causing the traffic problems and transportation issues which need urgent planning and designing to meet the future requirements.

Land Use Context

Karachi is the key centre of Pakistan’s entire economy. It plays an important regional, state and national role with the importance to increase during the coming years. The Metropolitan Plan for Karachi is identified. ‘Our Cities, Our Future’ presents the Pakistan Federal Government’s agenda on future major cities. Karachi is identified as an example of a regional centre whose development should be encouraged, as it will help to reduce travel demand by co-location of jobs, people and facilities, rather than broadly dispersing across the suburbs. All levels of Government should agree that Karachi needs to continue to grow economically and sustainably to provide more opportunities for the residents.

Transport context

Transport needs to be improved along with commercial, educational and cultural facilities to encourage businesses to locate there and increase opportunities for existing and future residents. A high quality transport connection to other major centers also needs to be established to strengthen the city of Karachi and will play a vital role in the national economy as a capital of Sindh, hence unlocking the potential productivity gains to be made. It provides the strategic framework to guide transport services and infrastructure delivery over the next 20 years, and identified priorities in short, medium and long term.

The government should strengthen bus services, and make it high priority. The view to the future is to further enhance the transport corridors to an intermediate transport mode (light rail/bus rapid transit). State Government acknowledges the importance of The Council’s light rail feasibility study in investigating this, as well as investigation into the option of bus rapid transit for some corridors.

TRANSPORT LINKS

Describes the challenges facing circular Karachi and provide the strategic context for developing an Enhanced public transport network

• Develops a connected public transport network with; Karachi as the major hub, and including identifying Priority alignments.

• Brings together assessments of the priority alignments across transport, land use, environment, social and economic aspects and determine their effectiveness as public transport services.

• Develops and runs an integrated transport and land use model for the priority alignments.

• Suggest a first stage project to be further investigated.

Phase wise study

In phase one, the northern section of the Karachi Circular Railway will be rehabilitated (that is from City Station to Gulistan-e-Jauhar), and double tracked. Stations will be shifted to under the flyovers and bridges to make the KCR-road link possible. Simply by rehabilitating this section and making it operative, the volume of commuter traffic on the roads within the circle of the KCR (including M.A. Jinnah Road, the North Nazimabad and Liaquatabad corridors, University Road and Chakiwara Road) will fall to much less than half .

In phase two, has proposed a spur of six kilometers from the Nazimabad Station to Nagan Chowrangi and the activating of the main line rail corridor. In addition, a spur to Korangi from Drigh Road Station is also envisaged. With these spurs in place the vast majority of Karachi commuters will be using the railway as a means of transport thus reducing commuter traffic further on the main roads.

Hopefully, later on spurs to Orangi and Baldia will also be built. Once that happens, the vast majority of Karachitees will be living within two kilometers of the railway

COST ANALYSIS:

COMPARISION BETWEEN CONVENTIONAL LONG ROUTE BUSES WITH CIRCULAR RAILWAY IN KARACHI

COST ESTIMATION FOR KARACHI BUS SERVICES

DescriptionTotal Routes

Running Cost incl. profit /day

Vehicle with

Permit 1

Estimated Cost Paid by the

Public per day/ Rs.

Public Bus 88

13,500

3,065

41,377,500

Public Mini-Bus 145

9,300

5,948

55,316,400

Public Coach 34

6,200

3,386

20,993,200

Sum of above

267 12,

399 117,6

87,100

The numbers of trips were estimated by CDGK are 24.5 million per day. About 65% of the work force uses some form of public transport on daily basis in the city.

That gives us 24.5 x 0.65 = 15.9 millions trips on public transportAmong those 15.9 million trips, it can be estimated that 50% trips are of public bus services Let’s say 15.9 million x 0.5 = 7.95 million trips

No of trips on Public Buses in Millions 7.95

Cost per head per trip in Rs. 14.8

Reference:

1. REPORT CDGK, SHAHEED BENAZIR BHUTTO CNG BUS PROJECT, JUNE 2011

Cost Estimation for Karachi Circular Railway

Repair and Cleaning Cost of Rail tracks

Labor cost per day Rs. 500

Labor Capacity To clean about 10 meters rail track per day

No. of Labors required to clean 1 km of rail track per day

100

Cost of labor on 1 km of railtrack cleaning in Rs. 50,000

Average Repairing Cost per km in Rs. 1,000,000

Cost of Supervisor and Managing Team per km in Rs.

30,000

Total Cost per km Rs. 1,080,000

Total Length of track km 87.4

Total Cost Million Rs. 94.4

Locomotive Specifications and Passenger Carrying Capacities

Capacity of single train set 1200 Passengers

Maximum Passengers Volume in Peak Hour (Passengers/Peak Hour-Direction)

20,289

Frequency of Train Operations

Provide one train or more (one-way) every 6 minutes during peak time

Circular Trip avg travel time 3 hrsService hrs 18 hrs

Required number of train-sets 32

Passenger Carrying Capacity of all Trains at once

38,400

Approx No. of Railway Stations/ Stops 28

Diversity Factor for the passenger to travel to the longest route (for 1/4 route) 0.25

Maximum Passenger Carrying Capacity of Circular Railway System per day =

Passenger Carrying Capacity of all trains x No. of stops x Diversity factor of Longest routed Passenger x Service time / Travel Time for Single Trip

.= 1,612,800

Average no. of Passengers travelling per day 1,290,240

Capital Cost Rate in Million

Rs. QtyAmount in Million Rs.

Cost of 6,000HP Locomotive Engine 250 32

8,000

Cost of Passenger Car 20 320 6,400

Cleaning Cost of Railway track 94.4

Total Capital Cost Involved 14,494

Rs. 14.5 Billions

Operation and Maintenance Cost

Fuel/ Diesel Consumption per locomotive per km 8.5

Cost Rs. /Liter 104.6

Total Running Cost per Train Rs. 889.1Max No. of trips travelled by one train 6

No. of Trains 32Total No. of trips travelled by all trains (including load factor on train trips= 0.6) 115.2

Avg length of Track in km 50

Total Length travelled by all Trains in km

5,760

Total Fuel Cost of all Train Rs. 5,121,216

Add 40% maintenance and overhead Cost

7,169,702

Rupees 7.17 Millions

Cost Comparison

DescriptionCircular Railway

SystemConventional Public Bus

Services

Capital Cost in Million Ruppes

14,494 0

Total operational Cost incl. Maintenance per day in Million Rs 7.17 118Passenger Carrying Capacity per day in millions 1.29

7.95

Running Cost per Passenger per trip in Rs. 5.56 14.80Running Cost for 1.29 ppl for 1 years in Million Rs.

2,617

6,971

Annual Operational Cost + Capital Cost in Million Rs.

17,111

6,971

Payback Period in Years 2.5

Annual Savings after Payback period 4.35 Billion Rupees

Savings of 5 years after Payback period 21.77 Billion Rupees

Savings of 10 years after Payback period 43.55 Billion Rupees

Conclusion:

The infrastructure of a railway is its most expensive asset. A new railway can cost PKR 2500 million per kilometer and this price will double to PKR 5000 million for an elevated urban line. An underground metro or subway can cost up to PKR 20,000 million a kilometer in a country where protection against typhoons and earthquakes is required. So in that way Karachities are lucky to have already laid railway tracks. What we just need is a good governance which will ensure appropriate policies, will take right decisions at right times and will manage at their bests.

This railway system is equally important to switch the traffic load from the roads to the railway tracks considering the rapid escalation and growth in the population of this mega city.

As this railway system will be under the authority of CDGK, and we just deduced that the cost per head per trip is much cheaper than that of conventional busses; so it can be one of the sources of income for the Govt. to further improve their railway systems and ease the public as well as will increase the standard of their transportation means.

Though it is evident that more than 20% of share from the income of a poor man is spent on the transport, this circular railway system will be proved helpful in easing these low income people.

Cut short, Govt. can save an amount of Rs. 4.35 Billions, which is earned by a hardworking poor people; just by investing on the right thing and on the right time.