15. Half ticket - Full bundle of joy

In planes, which are now the benchmark comparison for the bullet train, even a two month old baby is charged a full ticket.

However, in trains in India we go by age for a half ticket and the bus conductors down south would use the height as a metric to charge a half or full fare decades ago!!

Presuming we will have a sizeable number of under three foot toddlers who must pay at least half the fare, the idea of using the space under the overhead luggage rack as a retractable pull down cradle cushioned on all sides occurred to me.

The images below would help to imagine how these cradles might recede into the base of the overhead luggage rack and fit within the allotted row to form a cradle-berth for up to 2 year olds!

Pull down vertical storage as used in kitchens

US Patent 20040123781A1 

Of course the images are only ideas and the US Patent 20040123781A1 maybe requisitioned at minor cost for public utility or circumvented by providing vertical tube-in-tube retractors!

The lighting as you would have guessed by now needs to go into the armrest!

So, even if this idea is adopted for 5 locations in a coach, the lights can still go into the armrest as a permanent movement even for the Shatabdhis right away for a host of conveniences!

14. Lights - Camera, ...Arm rest

The arm rest has been a focus of attention lately for me and among the various uses that it is put to in plane, the utility of storage space for a tray table is universally known to economy class passengers!

The present idea comes out of the need to shift the reading lights from below the overhead luggage compartment which links to the next blog in this series.

So where do we put the reading lights and of so what type should it be? No great guesses required

It goes into the arm rest storage space vacated by the tray table and my choice is the flexible Jansjo type popularized by IKEA!

Why do I not want it below the overhead luggage compartment , which is obviousl time-tried and cost effective? Read the next post!

13. Energy in the Wake - Use of micro-mini windmills

Being a student of Visvesvaraya (National Institute of Technology), the thought of harnessing energy at a micro level never ceases to amaze me!

Therefore like the idiot that I am I thought I could fill my quota of the day by looking at regenerative braking only to be prevented by a decades old presentation on "High-Speed Rolling Stock- Japan", where curves are presented of how much energy is recovered !!

Refer link for details -
High Speed Rolling Stock - Japan

Tough guys, these Japanese, I say!

So I prayed to Lord Visveswarayya, and lo and behold is the idea of the day -

At 320 kmph , average speed there should be enough wind velocity in the wake of every bullet train to harness the energy in into a 5-50 KW wind turbine (the wind velocity is going to be huge!!) like the one shown below-

( i didn't get better picture in Images section of Google for my idea, but I think you will get the drift! the actual configuration will be longer, shorter and more like an aeroplane turbine!!)

Putting one turbine at every length +10 meters of a train and with a train passing every 15 minutes, we are looking at some generation potential - i would think about 0.5-5 MW capacity and i could be off by orders of magnitude.(I am very bad at these phasor calculations where one needs to integrate areas under peak capacities and zero capacities over defined time intervals!!)

Very small capacity in terms of teh gigawatt plans of the nation, but with eddy dissipation and staggered configurations, this will keep a host of engineers busy studying the aerodynamic profiles in the immediate wake with a lateral shift of say 1-3 meters!!

12. Business Luxury - The Gujju way

Let's say, I am a Gujju businessman owning a S-class Mercedes and having an office anywhere along the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train route, while my family stays in Ahmedabad. I can think of a 1000 such families in my knowledge leave alone making an actual count.

Now would I pay Rs. 20,000 for a one-way luxury class ticket to Mumbai from Ahmedabad ( I will leave out the cost dynamics of the intermediate travel for the interested accountant) by the bullet train on a daily basis?

Normally, no!! While my Merc proclaims my status, I am particular about the daily cost of the travel so I would keep such bullet train travel for visitors i want to impress or special weekends or to get a business visitor to see my farm house 45 kms away from the city center in Ahmedabad!

But what if the bullet train authorities said that i could drive in my mercedes into the bullet train and drive off in Mumbai , drive around, and then drive back into the bullet train and drive back home at the end of the day - would this entice me? Would such an offer be affordable to the Railways?

How the cars may go into the train!

Lets take a peek into the cost dynamics from either side -

Railway perspective -

The railways as per the Wikipedia plans a 10 to 16 coach train capable of carrying 1300 to 1600 passengers. For ease of calculation i presume a 16 coach , 1600 passenger capacity format  which gives me 100 passengers per coach.

A normal coach would earn me a revenue of Rs. 150000 per coach , @ Rs. 1500 per 100 passengers.
So, if i get this amount i am revenue neutral.

Not knowing the dimensions of the coach, I am going by mere geometry, so, I took Tata Divo Luxury Bus that takes 45 passengers and its length is about 12 meters, so I presume that at 24 meters the length of the coach would accomodate 100 passengers.

Next, I browsed for overall lengths of luxury cars , which are less than 6 meters so I presumed that i could fit 4 cars on the floor and 4 cars on an upper berth , no car being greater than 1.5 meters in height - total 8 cars. Similarly a payload of 20 tonnes should match weights of a filled coach on a design basis for the bullet train to look on this payload as a normal passenger coach in all aspects.

So, the cost for railways is Rs. 150000 divided by 8 cars  - Rs. 18750 /- per car !! Rs. 1250 for attendants and good snacks or cold drinks from Taj Sats! - Total Rs. 20,000

Infra for driving cars into the train

For me (remember I am a Gujju businessman now  ) -
I will put the cost of travel in Mumbai all through the day including travel to and from the airport -
Rs.200 per day parking charges at the station counting both ends together.
Rs. 4500 minimum (Rs. 1500 per person for three persons I will take in my mercedes)
Rs. 6000 Economy Class airfare to Mumbai per person - Rs. 18000/-

My God, its a deal (and the driver gets to travel for free as I expect in all my transactions !!)

11. Water Conservation - Re-cycling cleaning water during maintenance

Given that we already have talked about the toilets being airplane like, we would presume that the trains would be washed everyday!

Naturally, one presumes that all water would be re-cyclable, because we do not expected sewage spill anywhere on the lines.

Also the storm water drains would gradient themselves into natural aquifers around the maintenance depots marked in the map taken from Wikipedia below!

Should we set a metric for recycling the amount of water used in cleaning for the entire project at 99%, so that apart from evaporation losses we don't lose treated water to inefficiency and also safeguard ourselves during drought times !! 

10. Dabbawalas - Their paradigm in the 2 hr bullet train

After lunch, all ideas gravitate towards food - it is the nature of things.

Given that the bullet train journey between Ahmedabad and Mumbai is going to be 2 hrs , would it not be great of the dabbawalas expanded their business model to cover the entire route between Ahmedabad and Mumbai!

Imagine students in Vallabh Vidyanagar getting Rasam and Sambhar from their mothers in Ahmedabad or students of Narsee Monjee enjoying a good breakfast lunch and dinner from home!

But the bigger idea is that the model is easily replicated by for an internet based delivery of Amul Milk in the entire region based of actual movement by the dabbawalas!

Talk of synergies and employment potential! Amul and Dabbawalas hint at a business model that puts the traditional mandi to shame and speaks volumes of the contours that the e-NAM (National Agricultural Market) launched recently may take and the maturity that this platform will have by 2024!

9. Seats - The awkward position of the arm-rest

This is a request!

Can the design team resolve the swing position of the arm rest in the seats of the bullet train so that it does not stand out like a flagpole when one or both passengers on either side of it reclines the seat from the upright position?

I am sure this simple problem is a matter of adjusting stops on the rotation hinge and a small projection on either side of the seat to prevent movement of the arm rest into the space of the passenger sitting behind!

This is applicable to all seats starting from the state ransport buses to the famed "volvos" of India, to the Shatabdhis, to economy class seats on most airplanes!!

Am I missing something here or is there a deeper problem (cost, patent infringement, etc.,) to this than the one i am able to decipher for it being so in such varied modes of transport across the world!

8. Windows - What should they be made of ?

In August 2015, I had written an email to friends and my erstwhile organisation about some exciting developments in the field of solar cell materials.

I think the opportunity to use such a material on the window of the bullet train is too good a opportunity to miss given that this area is going to be exposed to sun quite a lot!

Please read the note written then and imagine for yourself how this would play when such material is used in the windows.

Energy from renewables

Also see a comparison of costs of fossils fuel consumption in the referred spreadsheet which is also linked here for your review!

Sample calculations on renewables

7. SSS - Sunk Seismic Sensor

The first blog of the day calls for some technology inputs, right?

Well, here goes with the idea that at the concrete base foundation of the bullet trains, there should be triaxial accelerometers giving seismic signals for stopping the system in case of detection of seismic movements likely to culminate into sizeable quakes.

I am sure that the Japanese would have worked on this to a great extent with the recent quake providing ample lessons in context.

A sunk seismic sensor (SSS) as i would like to call it is a triaxial accelerometer that gives an indication of movement in three cardinal axes. A module developed on this basis and applied at 1 km distance would give a network of sensors along the track for prediction of seismic movement.

Since such modules are available from Rs. 249 to USD 1570 , the Institute of Seismological Research, set up in 2006 in Gujarat can work on a data logging system collecting subterranean inputs from commercial sunk seismic sensors in the foundations that can be made compulsory for buildings above 10 floors. The standardization routine and the minimum acceptable output integrity from such sensors to make a cogent warning system will have great utility as the high speed rail network expands to other seismologically sensitive zones in India, not that we have forgotten the quake of Kutch that could be felt distinctly by me at the Temple of Panduranga in Pandharpur!

Of course it is possible to look at competing technologies for the sunk seismic sensor like those given the micro electro-optical gyroscopes.

An electro-optical gyroscope

Characteristic curve of a microelectro-optical gyroscope

The ideation around building such a sensor network by setting minimum standards for data logging and data transmission to aid earthquake early warning systems and separating it from other basic utilities that such sunk seismic sensors can be used for is as complex as the internet routing problem and one can gauge it by the images below -

But it will be a worth objective for a Seismological Research Institute and what a way for it to contribute to the progress of a a high speed rail network in the nation by reducing the cost to increase proliferation of 

6. Toilets, bullet train and Swachch Bharat

How many toilets would be required in a train that completes its end to end 508 km journey in two hours?

The point is a local train in Mumbai that travels from CSTM (earlier called VT) to Kasara or Karjat takes about 2 hours today and there is no provision for a toilet in it!!

Obviously, the daily commuters of this type of local train are not senior citizens and children that are above the nappy age but not yet able to control themselves, are some points that need to be factored.

Therefore, airplane toilets are a natural choice and the number should be one per two or may three compartments with free rights of admission to Physically handicapped, children below 10 and senior citizens.

The others can pay a nominal Rs. 50 / - to use the toilet more as a deterrent to prevent the abundant misuse that such provision is likely to attract in our country.

When some of us travel abroad, we do pay 1 Euro to use the public toilet, why should the bullet train toilet charge any less?

The collection proceeds could of course go to the continuance of Swachch Bharat Abhiyan to provide clean toilets for all! 

5. Bullet Train Financials

In October 2015, there was a raging debate among very well qualified friends of mine as to the financial viability of the bullet train proposal in India.

The major worries were the cost of the journey, the repayment capability, and other metrics apart from the fact that each of us were actually lobbying inadvertently to push his view on the need for this project, while, masking it through the gambit of viability.

We left the spreadsheet at a revenue neutral price of  Rs.500 per one-way journey between Ahmedabad and Mumbai, provided that there was time share on the tracks to push goods , say during the night periods. This was a mixed model for passenger cum goods traffic on the same infrastructure!

The link to the spreadsheet and the concluding argument (in  a mail form) on financials giving the assumptions as we left it  is below -

Concluding argument listing assumptions, mitigation etc.

Sample Bullet Train Financial spreadsheet (vintage Aug-Oct 2015)
Sample sheet updated 3 dec 2019 after errors discovered
{The key changes as on 3 dec 2019 were -
1. FE rate updated to Rs.71.6 per dollar
2. Japanese Loan Amount updated to Rs.79000 crores.
3. Freight rate reduced to Rs. 500/ tonne after looking up Indian Railways Freight calculator! see snapshot in link.
The fallout of this was that a goods traffic of 227 Million Metric Tonnes was required per annum between Ahmedabad and Mumbai for a net positive cash flow of Rs. 1500 crores per annum given all other liabilities which are presumed on the higher side to offset short and long term risk. 227 Million Metric Tonnes might be reasonable assumption on this leg as 1016 MMT was carried throughout India in 2016-17 reported by Indian Railways. Those interested may refer to the pages 83 onwards of the Joint feasibility final report by JICA and IR and page 10 of the report published by IR for 2016-17)
4. Repayment of Japanese Loan (Principal and Interest) set to 50 years which is as per original understanding
5. Depreciation has to be charged over 20 years, which for such a large project is a given! 8 years in the original sheet was too aggressive and this perhaps masked the Rs.15 per kg of freight cost!!}

Updated May 2016 - Passenger ticket Rs. 1500/- , Freight Rs.7.50 / Kg , Pass./Freight Revenue Ratio 1:1

Please feel free to download, play around, question assumptions, build alternates, as long as we aim to find a way to get the price of travel lower than the one declared below!

The price as announced recently in the newspaper for only passenger traffic considering about 100 journeys both ways transporting about 100000 passengers per day  is Rs. 1500 ! (as on 3 Dec 2019 various newspaper reports are talking of prices between Rs. 2500 and Rs. 4000 to match air fares and it would be a shame on our capabilities as a nation if this were to come to pass)

I have argued that marginal addition in cost should be incurred to make it feasible to transport goods in a timeshare mode using majority of the same infrastructure which can form a part of the Delhi- Mumbai dedicated freight corridor! The freight revenue will easily offset the additional cost and may even be a revenue spinner as the spreadsheet shows.

This idea has been opposed on technical grounds , so many of my technical ideas will still presume this basis as i would want the lowest cost travel (commensurate with a regime of non-subsidy outside the given infrastructure paradigm)  for this fantastic experience that our countrymen will have! 

Don't they deserve to have one?

Finally, as one friend said, once a vision is bought into, it is only a question of how to make it possible! 

4. Feeder system - Electric rickshaws and cars

This proposal is firstly about treating the stations on the bullet train more like airports than like normal railway stations that we are used to.

Will this mean a change in attitude?

I remember my brother narrating an episode during his internship with an architect in Switzerland, where he placed a lot of  benches on the platform of a new railway station design, the architect asked what are these for? 

My brother said, " For People"

The architect asked, "What People?" The concept of "seeing off" was long dead in the west, it is not so in our country where even the swanky T3 in Delhi invites hordes of people for a "look see" visit.

Thus a railway station is more than just a train stop for us, so why not ensure that the feeders are purely electric vehicles in keeping with the bid to reduce pollution around this ecosystem!

Only all-electric rickshaws, all-electric cars (we hope that the Mahindras e2O has competition by then) to be allowed into these new station railway premises. The municipal transport or the interchange metros would anyway have moved into an electric mode by then , we hope!

3. Quota for the day from old posts - Tracks

Sustaining creative outbursts is difficult.

The calculus for a million ideas is a 1000 ideas by a 1000 people, one of whom is me.

The quota for a day is 3 hoping that the clock hits a million in the year.

So to complete the quote here's the link -

http://jignyaasaa.blogspot.in/2012/11/innovations-simple-obtuse-and-far_15.html

As we go forward it may not be possible to add a 1000 contributors, but why worry about that before even crossing the 10% mark!!

2. LDR based lighting

Though it is a given that LDR (light dependent resistor) based lighting should be a given if a train route uses an undersea section in its travel, however when one wants to target a million ideas, even small and already known.

My mother comments that she knows about the driver switching on the lights from his cabin in tcase of the tunnel journey between Mumbai and Pune during her times. However, given the technology of our times this primary automation maybe only a check point and the redundancy of the manual switch in the controller's cabin as well as with the driver should be a given!

1. ITE - In Train Entertainment

With images in my mind of daily commuters, singing bhajans , hymns to ease the tedium of their travel as they commute to work, the first idea or proposal is that the bullet train have minimal in-train-jukebox with a selection of readings from the Gita, Koran, Bible, Guru Granth Sahib, and all possible religions that our country is proudly host to.

May be this will be a market segment to be exploited by specific audio software aggregators with commuters requiring to bring their own headphones to plug into the ITE or selectable audio channel riding on the public address system in each coach as per cost dictates.....

I would enjoy listening to Ventakesa Suprabhatam / Bhaja Govindam on my first journey as I would imagine every passenger would to his choice of audio  including using his / her headphone to cut out the outside noise in the compartment for a journey in silence!