Kochi Metro’s 5 km Second Stretch Inaugurated
Kerala’s Chief Minister and India’s Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs yesterday inaugurated the new 5 km Palarivattom – Maharaja’s College section of the city’s 27.5 km Line-1. This comes barely 4 months after the line’s first 13.2 km stretch was inaugurated by the Prime Minister in June. The launch event at the Ernakulam Town Hall started at 11 am and culminated with the the inaugural train getting flagged off from JLN Stadium Station towards Maharaja’s College Station.
Construction on this section was carried out by Larsen & Toubro (Package KC-03, CUSAT – JLN Stadium) and Soma Enterprise (Package KC-03, JLN Stadium – Ernakulum South). Trial runs (testing) started on July 14 during which a train was operated manually to check its interaction with the line’s civil structure. Signalling tests on Alstom’s Urbalis 400 communications-based train control (CBTC) system began on August 26 and were completed in under 2 weeks. This was followed by a 2-day inspection by the Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) who’s approval was received shortly after.
With this new extension on Banerjee Road and MG Road, Line-1’s operational length has become 18.2 km (Aluva – Maharaja’s College) with 5 new stations at JLN Stadium, Kaloor, Lisie, MG Road and Maharaja’s College –
2nd stretch of Kochi Metro’s Line-1 – view Kochi Metro map and information
Photo Copyright: KMRL
Photo Copyright: CMO Kerala
Departing Lisie Station towards Kaloor – Photo Copyright: Samayam Malayalam
JLN Stadium Station – Photo Copyright: Anweshanam
JLN Stadium Station – Photo Copyright: Anweshanam
JLN Stadium’s concourse area – Photo Copyright: Mohzin
Lisie Station – Photo Copyright: KMRL
Video via the CM’s Twitter account –
Inaugurated #KochiMetro‘s Palarivattom to Maharaja’s College stretch. Construction of Palraivatom–Kakkanad line (11.2 km) will start soon. pic.twitter.com/VFIWHgUWkC
— Pinarayi Vijayan (@vijayanpinarayi) October 3, 2017
Commercial operations started today (Oct 4) at 6 am using 9 Alstom Metropolis trains (with another 2 on standby) at a headway of 10 minutes. Kochi Metro hasn’t yet updated its fare chart, but the maximum price is said to be fixed at Rs 50. Ridership averaged 30,000/day in September and the KMRL is hopeful that it’ll soon touch 75,000/day.
With the opening of this new stretch, just another 9.3 km of Line-1’s route (see map) is pending between Maharaja’s College – Tripunithura in Phase 1. Work for that was originally awarded to Soma Enterprise & Era-Ranken JV in June 2013, but was offloaded due to tardy progress in mid-2016 and re-awarded to a consortium of Cherian Varkey Construction Company and Vijay Nirman Company in August 2017. That section is expected to open only in or after 2019.
For more updates, check out the Kochi section of The Metro Rail Guy!
– TMRG
KMRL is having technical problems in reading Smart travel cards issued in association with Axis bank. Many cards failed to read at the ticket counters and authorities recalled the cards. Now KMRL says the card will rectified within three weeks time as reported in New Indian Express. KMRL wanted to reduce ticket rates to attract more passengers… But software not reading the discounts. Two tier rates adopted by Jaipur metro …peak hour and non peak hour…and ₹ 50 unlimited travel for day are best option for kochi metro. Earlier KMRL was thinking about giving 40 % discount for monthly pass holders…but due to technical slag nothing revealed as of now.
This is interesting. I didn’t know about the AFC system issues. Do drop a comment whenever they sort things out – I’d like to know what happens.
Chennai metro is also offering Tourist Card at ₹50 which can be used for unlimited travel for a day….Similar card available in Delhi metro also. Today Malayalam Manorama (Kochi edition) has carried a comparison chart of all ticket rates of nine metro…. Out of this Jaipur metro chart looks more attractive for kochi metro.
JLN Station and the Metro Train looks awesome.