Vision 2020 - Transportation Research Group of India

Government of India
Ministry of Railways
(Railway Board)
Table-2: IR vis-à-vis others: International comparison
(All figures pertain to the year 2008)
Million traffic units Route kms per million Route kms per square
(PKM + NTKM) per employee population kilometer area
USA 15.3 747.4 23.6
China 1.6 45.5 6.4
Germany 0.7 410.9 94.9
France 2.1 466.5 54.2
Russia 2.6 598.1 4.9
India 0.9 55.2 19.3
Japan 2.2 157.5 53.0
Source: UIC, Paris
2.1.5 Comparison
Indian Railways lags behind the developed countries (U.S.A, Germany, France and Japan) in terms of
route-kms per square kms or route-kms per million population served which are broad indicators of the
level of rail connectivity in the country. This can be redressed by expeditious expansion of the network to
the unconnected regions. In terms of the productivity (traffic units/employees) also, IR is way behind
many of the Railways. This can be improved by easing capacity constraints, expanding services,
providing efficient, cost- effective and customer-focused services and rationalizing staff strength.
2.1.6 World-wide, advanced Railways systems have been gravitating towards heavy-haul in freight, highspeed
in passenger services and rail-based mass transit in urban transport. All the railways in the table
except IR have either high-speed rail networks or are building these. Heavy-haul freight operations are
also common in USA, China and Russia with trains carrying in excess of 20,000 tonnes each compared
to 5000 tonnes in our case. Japan, Germany, France and Russia have very well-developed rail-based
urban transit systems.
2.1.7 Other lessons that IR can usefully learn from the advanced railway systems pertain to
predictive/diagnostic tools in monitoring performance of assets/equipment over life for building nearly
infallible levels of reliability of operations.
2.1.8 Central Challenges
The central challenges for the Vision, therefore, are to leap-frog into a high-growth trajectory and join the
front ranks of the world's railways through technological upgradation, network expansion and
augmentation and delivery of highly efficient customer-focused services. A healthy and growing Railway
can be a vehicle for environmentally sustainable, inclusive, integrative growth and generation of millions
of productive jobs in one economy.
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