ber 2013. The second portion, from Jacob Circle to Wadala, had been expected to be ready by December 2013.
A 108-metre (354 ft) test run was successfully conducted on 26 January 2010. The monorail had its first test run on 18 February 2012 from its yard in Wadala to a station at Bhakti Park, a distance of around a kilometre. Scomi, the Malaysian company that supplied the brakes for the project, was in charge of the trial. The MMRDA will decide whether the Singapore-based SMRT or the Hong Kong-based Mass Transit Rail will be given the task of certifying the monorail system. This is because the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) had said it didn't have the capacity to certify the monorail, as it was a different system from the railways. The electrical workings of the monorail will be certified by the Electrical Inspector General.
The MMRDA invited proposals from agencies for securing, maintaining and leasing of bulk commercial advertisement rights to display advertisements on monorail piers and for securing advertisements at all the seven stations on the Chembur-Wadala corridor. The appointed agency will fix, maintain secure advertisements for the station areas and maintain monorail piers by removing all unwanted posters, stickers, drawings, graffiti etc. and also lease advertisement rights of these piers for commercial advertisements.
In a meeting between Larsen & Toubro and MMRDA official, held on 23 August 2013, the MMRDA raised concerns over the lack of trains, inadequate safety measures, technical faults and inexperienced staff working on the project. MMRDA metropolitan commissioner UPS Madan warned that the MMRDA would be forced to impose penalties and initiate legal action against the contractors in case of accidents.
The cost of setting up the monorail service is roughly 850 million (US$14 million) per km (mi). The complete network of about 135 kilometres (84 mi) is recommended for development from 2011 to 2031 in phases at the total cost of 2.0 billion.
The Mumbai Monorail master plan proposed the construction of 8 lines at a cost of 202.96 billion (US$3.2 billion). Further development of the monorail system is on hold, and questions have been raised as to whether the proposed monorail corridors will have sufficient capacity to meet Mumbai's requirements.
|1||Line 1 – Chembur – Wadala – Jacob Circle||19.54||27.16 billion (US$430 million)|
|1||Mulund – Goregaon – Borivali||30||41.7 billion (US$670 million)|
|1||Virar – Chikhaldongri||4.60||6399 million (US$100 million)|
|1||Lokhandwala – SEEPZ – Kanjurmarg||13.14||18265 million (US$290 million)|
|1||Thane – Mira-Bhayandar – Dahisar||24.25||33708 million (US$540 million)|
|2||Kalyan – Ulhasnagar – Dombivli||26.40||36696 million (US$590 million)|
|2||Chembur – Ghatkopar – Kopar Khairane||16.72||36863 million (US$590 million)|
|2||Mahape – Shil Phata – Kalyan||21.10||29329 million (US$470 million)|
In September 2011, the MMRDA said that did not have an immediate plan to start the construction of a second monorail in the region. They clarified that although it did not mean that they are not interested in carrying out the project, it may not follow the currently planned schedule. The MMRDA decided to put on hold all plans for the expansion of the monorail till the first route was commissioned. An MMRDA official stated, "There is no point in going for new routes. As long as the first route is not commissioned and the results are not out, we would not commission any new routes". MMRDA feels the need for a monorail would arise after all the proposed metro rail routes were commissioned with the monorail serving as a feeder service."
The MMRDA shelved the project to construct a monorail corridor from Thane to Kalyan and Bhiwandi in February 2014, citing low ridership estimates and availability of cheaper road transport alternatives. The development authority had planned to construct the corridor to serve as a feeder system to a metro project planned in Thane. U.P.S. Madan, Metropolitan Commissioner at the MMRDA, stated, "Having a monorail to connect to the Wadala-Kasarvada