India’s bullet train project: Will Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw’s ‘nobody will fly’ remark turn out to be true?

India’s Minister for Railways, Ashwini Vaishnaw, has said that the country’s upcoming high-speed rail network could dramatically disrupt the domestic aviation market, warning that bullet trains would eventually dominate several busy short-haul travel corridors. This is the second minister, after Nitin Gadkari, the Minister for Road Transport and Highways, to speak about the impact of shortening travel durations on flights.

Speaking at a CII event, Vaishnaw said the bullet train revolution would reduce Mumbai-Pune travel time to just 48 minutes. Pune-Hyderabad would take 1 hour and 55 minutes, Hyderabad-Bengaluru 2 hours and 8 minutes, Chennai-Hyderabad 2 hours and 55 minutes, while Bengaluru-Chennai would be covered in only 78 minutes.

Interestingly, Mumbai-Pune does not have air connectivity right now after repeated attempts have failed to have a sustainable service, while those between Pune and Hyderabad have remained the same over the last one year. There has been a drop in flights between Hyderabad and Bengaluru by 20% this May as compared to last one, a sharper 32% drop between Chennai and Hyderabad, with Air India group pulling out completely and nearly one-quarter of an increase between Bengaluru and Chennai with the entry of Air India Express on the route, shows data shared by Cirium, an aviation analytics company, exclusively for this article.

Interestingly, Mumbai-Pune, Chennai-Bengaluru, as well as Hyderabad-Bengaluru currently see Vande Bharat trains in operation, the modern sleep-designed trains which are faster than the other options in most cases and come with modern cabins and services. Chennai-Hyderabad and Pune-Hyderabad do not have Vande Bharat connectivity.

Beyond time, the experience matters

Bullet trains in India are not a reality just yet: the first route was announced in 2014 and has been under construction since 2017. Subsequent routes will take even longer to operationalise. One of the important factors in flying has been saving time, which will not only be matched but also bettered by the bullet train project. The other challenges with railways in the recent past have been cleanliness and hygiene, on- time performance and lack of action against people travelling without tickets. Partially, they have been addressed in Vande Bharat trains, while they would be fully addressed with the bullet trains since the stations are different and are expected to be access-controlled, offering a very different experience than today.

However, the challenge would be the location of the station and the connectivity to work areas. Greenfield airports in Bengaluru and Hyderabad have been operational for over 15 years now, yet lack metro connectivity from the city. The connectivity between the place of work or stay and the train station is equally important.

Globally, how is it?

Worldover, this has had a lot of debate and discussions, with France being the only country which has actively banned short-haul direct flights where direct high-speed rail connectivity exists. There have been similar debates in Germany and the Netherlands, but a rule has not been enacted.

Airports like Amsterdam have direct connectivity to the rail network, along with the ability to integrate airline schedules with trains and sell as a codeshare or interline flight for airlines. While alignment for the bullet train projects is in progress, a similar setup where the airport gets connected will have to be factored into planning in India to help with improving connectivity.

Tail note

The “nobody will fly” remark from the minister has attracted attention for obvious reasons, and the train will be faster as a total journey time, considering the time taken to reach the airport, along with security and check-in procedures. The bullet train will also likely get the passengers to the centre of the city, unlike the airports, which are away in some cases. The road ministry had a similar use case that did not really see conversion of traffic due to reasons like road safety, with aviation being the safest mode of transport. An access-controlled bullet train that offers speed, quality and safety will be desirable. The issue would then boil down to the cost. In Japan, from where the bullet train project comes to India, many air routes have lost significance over time, and this has been the case in other countries too.

The author, Ameya Joshi, is an aviation analyst.