Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday will inaugurate India’s first-ever driverless train operations on Delhi Metro’s Magenta Line — which connects Janakpuri West and Botanical Garden.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) said that the inauguration will be held via video conferencing at 11am on Monday. DMRC also announced that after the 37-km Magenta Line, they are also preparing to introduce the driverless technology on the 57-km Pink Line corridor (Shiv Vihar-Majlis Park) by mid-2021. After this, Delhi Metro will have a driverless network length of about 94 kilometres, which will be approximately nine per cent of the world’s total driverless metro network. The Delhi Metro currently operates on a network of about 390 kilometres with 285 stations spanning 11 corridors (including Noida-Greater Noida). Delhi Metro has been a pioneer in introducing technology driven solutions for passenger comfort and this is another step in the same direction.
The driverless metro trains will be fully automated, which will eliminate the possibility of human error. Officials explained that the driverless train technology has set standards for automation called grades of automation (GoA). In GoA 1, trains are run by one driver and, in GoA 2 and GoA 3, the role of the driver is reduced to operating doors and for taking over in case of emergencies — the starting and halting of trains is automated. Finally, in the GoA 4, trains are set on a completely unattended operations mode.
