India's first driverless train to hit tracks today

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation is all set to conduct the trial run of India’s first driverless train at Mukundpur depot here on Tuesday.

A train running on “Unattended Train Operations” mode will be flagged off at 5.30 pm on Tuesday from Mukundpur Metro depot by Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

The first driverless train for the Delhi Metro’s phase 3 project was manufactured at Changwon in South Korea. It arrived by sea at the Mundra port in Gujarat and was brought by road to Delhi on specially-made trailers. These trains will ply on the upcoming 58-km Majlish Park-Shiv Vihar (Line 7) and 38-km



Janakpuri West-Botanical Garden (Line 8) corridors. Both these corridors are expected to be operational by the end of 2016.

Twenty six-coach trains will be manufactured in South Korea and the remaining 61 are being manufactured at the Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) plant in Bengaluru.“Initially, the train operators will be deputed for operation and gradually withdrawn to move to Unattended Train Operation (UTO). Each coach can accommodate maximum 380 passengers, which translates to 2,280 passengers in each six-coach train.

ll as eco-friendly upgrades and many additional features have been added to increase passenger comfort,” the DMRC said.