Here's All You Need To Know About India's First Driverless Train For Delhi Metro

India's first driverless train on Delhi Metro: The country's first-ever fully automated, driverless train operations was flagged off on the 37 km long Delhi Metro Magenta Line connecting Janakpuri West to Botanical Garden on Monday, December 28. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the first such driverless train at Jasola Vihar-Shaheen Bagh Metro station of Delhi Metro Magenta Line via video conference yesterday.  According to the metro operator Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), with the commencement of the fully automated driverless trains operations (DTO), India has now joined the league of seven percent of countries in the world having this facility in their metro networks which are capable of operating without drivers. (Also Read: Here's How To Use National Common Mobility Card On Delhi Metro Airport Express Line )

Here's all you need to know about India's first-ever, fully automated, driverless train in Delhi Metro:

First Driverless Train Operations on Delhi Metro Magenta Line Janakpuri West to Botanical Garden - Top Features:

Benefits:

• The fully automated trains will reduce human intervention in operations and offer more reliability and safety for the commuters. The system also brings more flexibility to train operations.
• As a result, the number of trains in service can be regulated based on the demand dynamically without any dependence on the availability of the crew.
• Since these trains operate on communication-based train control (signaling) system, they can be run with a headway as high as 90 seconds to offer more carrying capacity.  
• According to DMRC, initially, the train operator will be present on the driverless train to instill a sense of confidence and assistance for passengers.
• The driverless train operation's higher level of diagnostic features will help move from the conventional time-based maintenance to condition-based maintenance.
• The system will also reduce maintenance downtime of the Delhi Metro trains. 
•  The driverless trains will be fully automated which will require minimum human intervention and will eliminate the possibilities of human errors.

Way Forward:

After starting the driverless train operations on the Delhi Metro Magenta Line Janakpuri West – Botanical Garden, the 57 km long Delhi Metro Pink Line Majlis Park – Shiv Vihar will also boast of driverless trains by the mid of 2021. With this, the Delhi Metro system will have a driverless network length of around 94 kilometres, which will be approximately nine percent of the world's total driverless metro network. 

Currently, the Delhi Metro operates on a network of about 390 kilometres with as many as 285 stations spanning across 11 corridors (including NOIDA – Greater NOIDA corridor).