As the year draws closer, the National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC) which is implementing India’s first RRTS corridor connecting regional nodes of Meerut and Ghaziabad with Delhi, details about the project and its development.

The 82 km long corridor that aims to bring down travel time to less than 60 minutes consumes 3-4 hours presently.

The NCRTC began the construction of its Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) project in the Duhai depot at the beginning of the year. Duhai depot will play an essential role to manage operations of 17 km long priority section of the corridor having five stations: Sahibabad, Ghaziabad, Guldhar, Duhai, and Duhai depot.

Also, the elevated portion in Delhi for RRTS corridor starts from Sarai Kale Khan RRTS station, passing over Barapullah Flyover and crossing Yamuna River to reach New Ashok Nagar RRTS station. To connect the elevated structure, the construction work in Delhi picked momentum this year.

While the first pier of the elevated section of the RRTS corridor in Delhi was constructed in June, since then, numerous pillars have been established and now the viaduct is being constructed near Ashok Nagar RRTS station.

The year 2022 will see construction at a rapid pace in Delhi with the city getting ready for India’s first Regional Rail.

Besides, this year was also marked by the beginning of construction work at underground stations. Apart from the elevated section, the construction of the underground section of RRTS corridor began with concreting of the Diaphragm wall (D wall) of stations in Delhi and Meerut.

NCRTC has successfully completed the installation of the first Special steel span of the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS corridor over the mainline Indian railway crossing near Vasundhara, Ghaziabad.

State-of-the-art, low maintenance RRTS Track laying started between Guldhar and Duhai. It began with the arrival of rails and currently rail welding is in progress. All these will contribute to the final stages of the priority section which will take final shape in the coming year – 2022.

Under “Make in India” guidelines, a pre-cast track slab factory was established at Shatabdi Nagar in Meerut by NCRTC. It is using Ballast fewer tracks for the 180 kmph design speed of RRTS trains.

Since there is no certified ballast-less track available in India for this speed, NCRTC opted for the “Pre-cast Slab Track System” for RRTS track.

Production of modern trainsets for the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS corridor commenced at a factory in Savli, Gujarat by NCRTC. These trainsets are using state-of-the-art, next-generation technology for a comfortable commuting experience.

The production of 40 trainsets (30 trainsets for RRTS train of six coaches each and 10 trainsets for MRTS (Mass Rapid Transit System for local transit in Meerut) train of three coaches each) are being done.

The trainsets are scheduled to arrive in 2022 for the trial runs that are slated to begin next year.

Platform Screen Doors (PSDs) have been indigenously developed in India for the first time by NCRTC this year. PSDs, which were imported so far, will now be manufactured in our country.

All the 5 RRTS stations in the priority section have started taking shape. Cross arms of Sahibabad and Ghaziabad have been established that have shaped the concourse level of both stations.

For Ghaziabad station, I-girders were installed for the construction of the platform level. The work of concourse and platform level at Guldhar and Duhai stations has begun.

NCRTC this year started setting up five Receiving Sub Stations (RSS) for power supply in the entire corridor of Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS. An RSS (Receiving Sub Station) is being constructed at Ghaziabad to supply power to the priority section where electricity will be drawn from the grid of UPPTCL (Uttar Pradesh Power Transmission Corporation Limited).

NCRTC is in the process of finalising the vendor for Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) which will offer QR Code based ticketing (Digital QR & Paper QR) and EMV (Europay, Mastercard, Visa) & RuPay Open Loop contactless card based on NCMC (National Common Mobility Card) standards.

Trial runs on the priority section is expected to begin in 2022 with trains arriving in the city soon.