Top Japanese firm in race for Monorail Project

CHENNAI: Top Japanese firm Hitachi, in collaboration with Mitsubishi, is in talks with Tamil Nadu government for providing monorail technology for the state’s 300 km project.Hitachi’s Yoshitaka Hirabaya and Mitsubishi Corporation’s Koichi Hattori said on Tuesday that monorail was feasible in Chennai as it was simple in construction and would cause less traffic congestion.Offering the Japanese monorail technology for the state, Hirabaya, whose company developed Tokyo monorail in 1964, said Hitachi’s technology was proven and was used for public transport unlike the technologies of Malaysia where it is used for amusement purposes. wwMitsubishi Corporation, Japan, provides funding for the technology offered by Hitachi.“Currently, we are also in talks with the Delhi and Mumbai authorities for providing monorail technology. We have already supplied technology to Taegu monorail in Korea, Chingqing monorail in China, Palm monorail in Dubai and Sentosa monorail in Singapore,” Hirabaya said.Comparing monorail with metrorail, Hirabaya said monorail was flexible and would not interfere with existing buildings and properties, besides reducing debt service during construction period as it was simple and slim and could be constructed in a short period.“The technology is environment-friendly and is different from the slab structure guideway used by the Metro Rail. Even the infrastructure of monorail costs 30 per cent less and it is quake-resistant,” Hirabaya said while citing an example of Osaka monorail, which withstood the quake in 1995.He said the passenger capacity of a six-car train in a 90-metre platform length is 62,440 people per hour per direction (PPHPD) and is somewhat comparable with Metro Rail.Currently, Hitachi is operating six monorail systems in Japan, running 306 cars. “The monorail in Tokyo came into being when Japan was hosting the Olympic Games. In a bid to avoid land acquisition, minister of transportation instructed Hitachi officials to develop high capacity transit system in air because air space is free and there is no congestion in air,” Hirabaya added.