vali Metro was the original plan, but it was not found to be feasible. There was not enough ridership on the corridor and we found that a Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) would be a more effective and cheaper option there." The MMRDA had originally planned to construct the Thane monorail as a standalone project to provide connectivity to Thane railway station, but altered the plan in order to provide hybrid connectivity of the metro and monorail from Teen Haath Naka in Thane to Bhiwandi and another arm to Kalyan. The proposed corridor would have been 23.75 km long, and cost approximately 3,169 crore.
The Mumbai Monorail was officially inaugurated on 1 February 2014 by Prithviraj Chavan, the Chief Minister of Maharshtra. It became the first monorail system in India. The service was made available for public from 2 February. He said after inaugurating the service—
The commercial operations of the partial initial 8.9-km first phase connecting Wadala-Chembur stations on the northeastern fringe of the megalopolis will commence tomorrow with the first train leaving the Wadala station at 7 am.
Chavan also said that it will take one more year to complete the project. The people of Mumbai warmly welcomed the new service in their city. Around 20,000 rode the monorail on its first day of operation, with long queues reported at stations.
According to studies conducted by the Mumbai Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) during the monorail trial run, it was found that the monorail produces between 65 – 85 decibels of noise, significantly lower than the 95 decibel noise level of a BEST Bus.
The monorail will have a top speed of 80 kilometres per hour (50 mph), an average speed of 65 kilometres per hour (40 mph) and the overall speed including dwell time at stations would be around 31 kilometres per hour (19 mph).
Capacity and frequency
The capacity of each four-car consist is 568 commuters under a 'crush load' and 852 passengers for a six-car consist. There are roughly 18 seated and 124 standing passengers per carriage (the end cars have a different capacity due to the driving position). The system has been designed for a 3 minute headway with operation from 05:00 to 24:00. The projected peak-hour traffic is 7,400 passengers per hour per direction with 125,000 passengers per day; this is projected to rise to 8,300 and 300,000 respectively by 2013.
The MMRDA has stated that the monorail will operate in a single shift from between 7 am and 3 pm, for the first two months of operation. The MMRDA claimed that the decision was because it wanted to cautiously roll out the system, as the monorail system was nascent in the country, its staff were new to monorail operations, and uncertainty over passenger traffic. Within two months of operations, the contractor in charge – a consortium of Larsen & Toubro and Malaysia's Scomi Engineering, will operate the monorail from 7 am to 7 pm. Full-fledged operations of 19 hours, from 5am to midnight, are expected to start only by February 2015.
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