Six moving walkways at Sarai Kale Khan RRTS station for ease of all commuters

Airport-like facilities for passersby at core of India’s first interstate high-speed rail project

Construction work at the Sarai Kale Khan RRTS station. | Photo Credit: R.V. MOORTHY

So far in use only at transit points such as airports, the National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC) has decided to install half a dozen travelators, or moving walkways, as part of a significant push for inclusive multimodal connectivity around the Sarai Kale Khan Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) station in Delhi.

To be open for use to commuters irrespective of whether they choose to travel by the high-speed rail network, six travelators — three on each side — will be installed in a 280-meter-long foot overbridge (FOB) to provide seamless multimodal integration between Sarai Kale Khan RRTS station and Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station.

Officials representing the sole interstate rapid transit system present at the 15th Urban Mobility India (UMI) Conference in Kochi told The Hindu that the NCRTC has floated tenders for the installation of six such devices, each of which will be approximately 65 metres in length, and was awaiting the submission of bids.

Along with the travelators, a three-meter-wide walkway will also be provided parallel to them for commuters who don’t want to use them.

Travelators are usually installed for a distance of 500 metres or more where commuters have to walk for longer distances. 

“Though the distance between the Sarai Kale Khan RRTS station and Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway station is approximately 300 metres, passengers travelling to and from Hazrat Nizamuddin Station are likely to be travelling with baggage,” an official said.

“So, a travelator was considered important along with the FOBs. It will help passengers interchange trains without exiting the station,” the official also said.

Sources said the NCRTC had recently invited partners for the Design, Manufacturing, Supply, Installation, Testing and Commissioning of the travellators/moving walkways for the Sarai Kale Khan station FOB.

At the core of the interstate high-speed rail system, the Sarai Kale Khan station is located in close vicinity of a Delhi Metro Station, the Indian Railways’ Hazrat Nizamuddin station and Vir Haqiqat Rai ISBT. 

Nearing completion, the station will also be the converging point between all three corridors (Delhi-Panipat and Delhi-SNB-Alwar and Delhi-Meerut) of the first phase. 

While interoperability will facilitate commuters to travel from one corridor to another without any hassle internally, due to its location and interoperability between the corridors, the station is expected to see lakhs of commuters and thus high footfall on a daily basis. 

It will especially prove to be beneficial to the elderly, children, women, specially-abled people and commuters travelling with heavy luggage to and from Hazrat Nizamuddin Station.

Trial runs are expected to commence on the RRTS’ 17-km-long Priority Section – which includes Sahibabad, Ghaziabad, Guldhar and Duhai – as early as next month what with two RRTS trainsets having reached Duhai Depot from the manufacturing plant at Savli in Gujarat and being subjected to dynamic and static testing.

Actual operations on this section, the NCRTC said, are likely to begin in March, 2023 – three months in advance of initial plans. The RRTS’ 82-km-long Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut corridor, which is expected to be commissioned entirely by 2025, aims to reduce single-point journeys between Delhi and Meerut to between 40 and 55 minutes.