Add good passenger handling, and this is the model for replication.
Shyam Ponappa June 1 2023
Vande Bharat trains get deservedly good coverage nowadays. They provide the model for goal-oriented team achievement that is possible in infrastructure. This process requires extension to aspects of user experience to complete the end-to-end system. It needs the complement of passenger handling for total service delivery, comparable to orderly boarding and disembarkation for airlines, or the system for voting booths.
A former member of the Railway Board describes the project as conceived, planned and executed in record time by a team of inspired, talented, and committed Railway professionals of the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai.1 Apart from the sanction by the then chairman of the Railway Board, A K Mittal, of two train sets budgeted at Rs 100 crore each, there was apparently little official support. These were completed on time, within budget.
Yet, just four years ago, after successful trials, the project was stalled by vigilance investigations that proved to be unwarranted against the leaders of the pioneering team of the “Train 18” project, later renamed “Vande Bharat”. The investigations found nothing, but the collateral damage was devastating for exceptional performers despite their being cleared of false charges.
Why “Train 18”? Because its champion, ICF General Manager Sudhanshu Mani, had 18 months left in service. His dream was to catch up on decades of established global practice at the ICF before retiring. The aim was to change the design of separate locomotives and coaches to a modern, single-unit train set capable of 180 km an hour without locomotives, with all power and service provision built into the undercarriage under the floor (for details see his book My Train 18 Story).
The ICF team rose to the challenge with good leadership, consultants, and vendor-partners, achieving what takes twice as long globally at half the cost. Successful trials at 180 km an hour of a train set with 80 per cent local manufacturing caught the Prime Minister’s attention, and two train sets began operation in 2019. The programme stopped abruptly because of vigilance action against the top team.2
The charges proved to be unfounded, and, after nearly three years, it seems as though the PM’s interest resulted in restarting the programme. Now, 18 train sets are operating as of May 25, 2023, with hundreds more planned. The performance of the trains occasionally elicits back-handed comments, such as being relatively slow (average speeds are more than 80 km/hour), that energy consumption is high, or that this would be nothing special in Germany, Japan, or China (the Financial Times)3, which is actually a compliment. The Vande Bharat is reportedly more energy-efficient than trains abroad, with average speeds on 14 routes published on April 20 ranging from 66 km an hour to 96 km an hour, with the median around 80 km an hour. By comparison, speeds on intercity routes under 300 km an hour in Europe in 2016 were as in the chart, with the median also at about 80 km an hour.
Reading Mr Mani’s book or watching his TEDx talk4 gives a sense of the degree of professionalism and teamwork that went into these outcomes. This is the achievement in terms of “hardware”. What of the passengers for whom it was made?
The design and manufacture of Train 18/Vande Bharat is exemplary for systems thinking and design, starting with the objective of a 180 km-an-hour train set with certain safety, quality, and comfort norms. The present emphasis on ramping up is promising. Yet more needs doing as always: Upgrading tracks to enable 200 km an hour at least, equipped with modern signalling, train sets with sleepers for longer distances, and barriers to prevent access to tracks. The scope and scale are monumental, and even more is needed beyond Vande Bharat for upgrading local passenger and intercity trains with better facilities.
Passengers who use these services do not have the benefit of an equivalent systems approach in their handling. The Railways have to take this step of setting the objective of convenience for passengers arriving at the station, embarking on these (or any other) trains, disembarking, and leaving the platform, to upgrade the customer experience hugely.
The process of embarking/disembarking on Vande Bharat trains is not organised. As the train is at the platform for a limited time, anxious passengers and porters rush to exit or enter helter-skelter. There appears to be no attempt to establish or maintain order. As for manufacturing, there need to be systems for passenger handling. Passengers arriving to embark on the train need a process, such as no well-wishers crowding the train, and queues instituted according to their coach number and seating order, half at the head end and half at the tail end of where each coach is expected to stop. Disembarkation needs to be managed first at both ends of carriages, with a clear passage to exit platforms. Embarkation needs to be arranged for each coach, such as having passengers from Seat No. 1 to the halfway number at the nearest doorway, and the other half at the farther doorway. With such procedures, passengers would have a much better experience with end-to-end services.
A systems approach in addressing train services for passengers is a paradigm worth applying with appropriate changes to other infrastructure and government services. The driving criterion needs to be clearly defined user-centric service experience, as against simply building more rail, or roads, or fibre networks. Processes need to be goal-oriented and require an end-to-end design of the hard and soft systems aspects as well their elements, followed by execution to standards, on firm timelines.
This template of goal-directed collaborative achievement deserves extension and replication in infrastructure and governance, using the talent and experience of such exemplars in providing leadership and guidance. There is then no need for overstatement, since the results will speak for themselves, as in the case of Train 18.
Shyam (no space) Ponappa at gmail dot com
1. “Not by ‘Vande Bharat’ alone”.
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/not-by-vande-bharat-alone/article66786278.ece
2. “Controversies, vigilance probe bring Vande Bharat Express to a standstill”
3. “India’s new railways project picks up speed.”
https://www.ft.com/content/77b1db06-4f 8c-4866-8f4a-4f489dce44cd
4. https://www.ted.com/talks/%C2%ADsudhanshu_mani_the_j%20ourney_of_train_18
