Page 16 - CO January 2022

COVER STORY

passenger traffic demands. Creating Intelligent Metro is the path U-girders are transported with the Transporter on the erected
for such a large scale development plan that can serve millions viaduct without any interface with road from a single identified
of people. Moreover, industry leaders’ insights prove that there feeding point.
are incredible opportunities by employing intelligent solutions to Such a technology is being used for the first time in India. The total
India’s Metro Rail. load of U-girders to be erected is as high as 160 ton and 462 such
The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) introduced a major U-girders are to be erected in the contract. This launcher today
innovation in its construction technology by starting launching has been made operational for the construction of a 9.5 kilometre
work on the Janakpuri West – RK Ashram Marg corridor with a long viaduct from Mukarba Chowk to Ashok Vihar covering four
specially designed Launcher attached with a Transporter for the stations namely Bhalswa, Majlis Park, Azadpur and Ashok Vihar and
launch of U-girders on its elevated section. This new state of the a connection to depot from Majlis Park.
art Launcher with Transporter is fully electric with much higher Defence Minister Rajnath Singh recently unveiled the country’s first
output in comparison to the conventional launchers/cranes. The indigenously designed and developed Driverless Metro Car at
Transporter carries the U-girder from one designated point and the Bharat Earth Movers Limited’s (BEML) manufacturing facility in
moves forward on rails laid on the already erected U-girders to Bengaluru. The Minister, while visiting the BEML facility in Bengaluru,
further add more U-girders from the feeding point to the launcher. said that the team of engineers and technicians have done
As a result, the U-girders are to be transported on trailer only up commendable work. According to BEML, the driverless metro cars
to the feeding point identified at a suitable location and not for being manufactured at their company’s Bengaluru Complex are
the entire length of work. This results in much less requirement of made of stainless-steel bodies and have a capacity of carrying
space. This new Launcher is 62m long having a total weight of as many as 2,280 passengers in six-cars metro train set.
230T. It can negotiate gradients upto 4% and 200m radius curves.
The Transporter which transports the U girder is 41.75m long having Metro Lite and Metro Neo
a total weight of 35T. It can travel with a speed of 3 kmph at no Cheaper alternatives to conventional metro rail, Metro Lite & Metro
load and 2 kmph at full load. Neo have become the new buzzword for smaller cities across
The output of this new innovation is quite high as compared to the India to augment public transport. Nashik, Thane, Gorakhpur,
conventional method of launching of U-girders. On an average, 4 Jammu, Srinagar and Coimbatore administrations are in talks
to 6 U-girders per day can be erected with this Launcher whereas with the Centre to get these modes of transport. While it costs
with the conventional method, about 2 U-girders can be done in `222 crore per km to construct a conventional metro rail, a Metro
congested working environments like in Delhi – NCR. The erection Lite, which resembles a tramway, costs `140 crore per km, and
work of U-girders with conventional cranes can be done only Metro Neo, which is more like an electric trolleybus, costs `71 crore
during the night as it requires blocking of roads to position the per km. Both the new technologies will not only complement the
cranes. Whereas in case of this new Launcher with Transporter, conventional metro, but could be good alternatives for providing

16 CONSTRUCTION OPPORTUNITIES|JANUARY 2022