A MINI PROJECT REPORT ON

VANDE BHARAT EXPRESS TRAIN

BY DR. LEENA NAIR

NAME OF THE STUDENTS

MANASI NAIR- 21305A0008

RASHI BANIYA- 21305A0015

ANJALI SINGH- 21305A0016

GOVIND SINGH -21305A0020

Aniket Sangle- 21305A0045

Arsalan Mukadam- 21305A0058

Aiman Shaikh- 22305A3001

PROGRAMME -B.COM IN ACCOUNTING & FINANCE

COURSE- BAF

SUBMITTED TO

NAME OF THE TEACHER- LEENA NAIR

VIDYALANKAR SCHOOL OF INFORMATION SCHOOL

WADALA, MUMBAI

Abstract
The Vande Bharat Express is one of the prestigious and modern trains run and managed by
the Indian Railways. It is considered a semi high speed train, which is the second fastest train
in India. Vande Bharat is also known as Train 18 and was inaugurated by the Prime Minister
of India, Shri Narendra Modi in 2019. This paper tries to study the satisfaction level
passengers travelled by the Vande Bharat Express and the progress achieved in advancement
of technologies in India. These second-generation trainsets were developed in 2022 and they
entered service on 30 September 2022. It is planned that all Shatabdi Express trains will be
phased out and replaced with Vande Bharat trains. This research paper consist of the
manufacturing of Vande Bharat trains including the cost and future plans related to the Vande
Bharat Railway. It also highlights the various features of the luxurious train.

Introduction
The Indian Government has dedicated significant efforts towards strengthening the ‘Make in
India’ campaign. As an excellent example of the ‘Make in India’ success story, the Indian
Railways launched India’s first indigenous Semi High Speed train, Vande Bharat Express.
The first Vande Bharat Express train was flagged off on February 15, 2019, on the New
Delhi-Kanpur-Allahabad-Varanasi route.1 On January 15, 2023, Prime Minister Narendra
Modi flagged off the eighth Vande Bharat Express train connecting Secunderabad
(Telangana) and Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh). The Vande Bharat Express can run up to
a maximum speed of 160 kmph and has travel classes like Shatabdi Train but with better
facilities. It aims to provide a totally new travel experience to passengers. Speed, Safety and
Service are the hallmarks of this train. Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai, a Railways
Production unit, has been the force behind a completely in-house design and manufacture,
computer modelling and working with a large number of suppliers for system integration in
just 18 months.

Background
The first Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) service in India was introduced in the Mumbai
suburban railway on 3 February 1925. Indigenously built EMUs started entering service in
the 1960s after Integral Coach Factory of Chennai, a government-owned manufacturer of rail
coaches started developing EMUs indigenously.

India operated EMU services within urban areas as Suburban rail services. For regular long-
distance travel, India relied on its locomotives to do the job. The inefficiency of these
locomotive-hauled trains was soon felt while the developed world already had well-built
EMU high-speed technology by the 1990s. EMUs for longer distances were conceived on the
long-distance main lines, giving birth to Mainline Electric Multiple Units
(MEMU) services. A decade later, India had several MEMU services operating across the
country's electrified routes as a short-distance inter-city service. India still had to rely on its
locomotives for long-distance travel.

Replacement of Shatabdis
Since the Vande Bharat Express was built to provide a short-distance, fast and modern
service between major cities, similar to the Shatabdi Express which was introduced back in
1988 for similar purposes, several train sets were supposed to be built to replace the existing
Shatabdis on all routes. But after the inauguration of first two services, the Indian Railways
had stopped the production of new sets owing to internal issues. After the intervention of the
Railway Minister, they decided to resume tenders for the production of new sets. However,
they wished to provide more time for the manufacturers for them to come up with the
cheapest bid and the fact that the train would require a major upgrade from scratch, as per one
of the officials. These second generation trainsets were developed in 2022 and they entered
service on 30 September 2022. It is planned that all Shatabdi Express trains will be phased
out and replaced with Vande Bharat trains.

Features of Vande Bharat Train

 The Vande Bharat Express offers two seating classes: CC Chair (Economy Class) and
Executive Chair (Premium Class).

 The Vande Bharat Express train has an intelligent braking system which enables
better acceleration and deceleration.

 All coaches are equipped with automatic doors; GPS based audio-visual passenger
information system, on-board hotspot Wi-Fi for entertainment purposes, and the train
also features air-line style rotatable seats, onboard catering, large windows in all
carriages etc.

 All toilets are bio-vacuum type. The lighting is dual mode, viz. diffused for general
illumination and personal for every seat.

 Every coach has a pantry with facilities to serve hot meals, hot and cold beverages.
The insulation is meant to keep heat and noise to very low levels for additional
passenger comfort.
  The Vande Bharat Express has 16 air-conditioned coaches of which two are
executive class coaches. The total seating capacity is 1,128 passengers. It is much
more than the conventional Shatabdi rake of equal number of coaches, thanks to
shifting of all electric equipment below the coaches and seats in the driving coach
also.

 It also has provision for Divyang-friendly facilities.

 Adding up the green footprints, the train has a regenerative braking system in the
Vande Bharat Express coaches which can save up to 30% of electrical energy.
 The Vande Bharat Express train has fully sealed gangways and censored
interconnecting doors for a dust free environment.

 A fire survival cable indoor circuit will also be an available on the train. There will
also be an improved air conditioning system.

Objectives
1. This train has been introduced to upgrade maintenance technologies and
methodologies and achieve improvement in productivity and performance of all
Railway assets and manpower in which inter-alia would cover reliability, availability,
utilization and efficiency.
2. To know people perspective on this Railway option.

Manufacturing of Vande Bharat

Integral Coach Factory (ICF) is the World’s largest Railway Passenger Rolling Stock
manufacturer. ICF had completed glorious 66 years since inception and has turned out more
than 68,000 coaches, the highest by any rail coach manufacturer in the world. Today, ICF is
the front runner in the manufacture of self-propelled coaches viz. EMU, MEMU, SPART,
OHE Tower car, SPIC and DEMU in the country. In 2018-19, ICF took a giant leap by rolling
out India’s first semi high speed train set, viz. Vande Bharat Express that was flagged off by
Hon’ble Prime Minister of India from New Delhi to Varanasi. The second rake of Vande
Bharat Express was also turned out by ICF during May, 2019. The 16 coach semi-high speed
Trainset with 80% indigenous inputs manufactured by ICF under “Make in India” project
consists of 16 coaches and is designed for Maximum Operating speed of 160 kmph. Version
2.0 of Vande Bharat Express rake with improved features, was rolled out from ICF, which
was flagged off by Hon’ble Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi ji on 0th September,
2022 from Gandhi Nagar Capital to Mumbai Central.

The cost of manufacturing a 16- coach Vande Bharat train is roughly around 110 crore to Rs
120 crore, an on average rate can be considered as Rs 115 crore as per statements of General
Manager of ICF, Chennai. Hence, the upgradations are improvements and as the
manufacturing of volume of trains will increase the cost will go down.

The biggest safety feature of the new set of Vande Bharat trains will be the use of the train
collision avoidance system (TCAS) or Kavach to prevent signal passing at danger (SPAD)
cases, unsafe situations arising due to over speed and train collisions in the station area as
well as in the block section.

The trains will also have a centralised coach-monitoring system, whereby all electrical
components and climate control will be monitored on a real-time basis by a designated
person.

Compared to the earlier versions, the new trains have been upgraded with several safety
features, including fire detection alarms in the coaches, a fire detection suppression system in
the cubicles and toilets, disaster lights, emergency lights -- two in the passenger area and one
in the doorway.

The security features also include four emergency windows per coach, while earlier it was
two.

Passengers dealing with emergencies can now have an easy access to emergency push buttons
and emergency talk-back units, using which they can speak to the loco pilot. The numbers of
both of have been increased from two to four.

With cattle run over causing serious damage to the train exteriors, the new trains will have
strengthened fibred reinforced plastic like the ones used in aircraft.

The ICF is planning to manufacture around 10 trains per month and eventually, the RCF-
Kapurthala and the Modern Coach Factory in Rae Bareilly will also start manufacturing these
coaches to meet the target of 400 Vande Bharat trains over the next three years.
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi setting a target of 75 such trains by August 2023, the
railways faced a major roadblock in achieving its goal when the wheels of the trains were
stuck in war-hit Ukraine.

Keeping in mind the cost of the train and issues faced in importation of parts the management
has given statements as such that the final train would be 99% “desi” with small
compartments imported to India. It will have automatic doors, sensor-operated doors for
coaches, reduced jerks, wider windows, more space for luggage.

Train 18 Important Specification Details:

Particulars Details
Number of coaches in Basic Unit 4 car per BU, DTC – MC- TC- MC (end
BU) NDTC-MC-TC-MC (Middle BU)
Train formation 16 coaches- 4 BU per Train
% Motoring 50%
Maximum Test Speed 176 kmph
Maximum Service Speed 160 Kmph
Average Acceleration from 0 to 40 Kmph 0.8 m/sec2
Deceleration 0.8 m/sec2

Literature Review
In this study, researcher go through various studies depending up on passenger satisfaction.

Sheeba. A. A and Dr. K. Kumuthadevi(2013), studies that identifying different factors of

service quality of Indian railways. The major findings of this study enables that the most
important factors determining satisfaction of passengers in train are serially comes as basic
facilities, hygiene, safety & security, catering, health care service. punctuality, behavior
towards passengers. V. Rajeswari and K. Santa Kumari (2014), this paper aims to study the
passenger's perception about the service quality of rail transport system in India. Margaret
Divya and Nandhinidevi (2020), they examined that the various services provided by the
Indian Railways along with the objectives to evaluate the passengers' preferences,
satisfaction, limitations, and perceptions towards the same. Magheswari Gopal, Vasanthi
Soundrarajan, Nishad Nawaz, Vijayakumar Gajendran and Satyanarayana Parayitam (2023),
they examined that the customer satisfaction on cleanliness and other service quality
dimensions in Indian Railways. This study revealed that passengers were satisfied with the
tangibility, assurance, and reliability dimensions of service quality.

Methodology
We have used primary data collection method, where we have taken survey of people about
the awareness of Vande Bharat Train and if so then the point of view of people on this
achievement of Government.

We have done survey online with the help of Microsoft forms and have shared via WhatsApp,
and other social media groups. Polar questions were asked with the options ‘Yes’ ‘No’ ‘Good’
‘Very Good’ ‘Satisfactory’ ‘Unsatisfactory’ subjective to the question.

At the end we had asked point of view in one sentence. We had received 22 responses in total
most probably our main target audience were people who have experienced this source of
transportation.

Following are the questions and responses of the respondents as well as interpretation:

Hence 99% of respondents

Are aware of Vande Bharat Train.

77% of the respondents have experienced this luxury train.

Out of the travelled respondents 36% of the respondents

found it moderate. 41% of respondents found it more than
good and 23% of respondents are satisfied with the train
services.

In comparison to other express train services 91% of respondents found

it a better option.
59% of respondents are seems to be okay with the ticket fair of the
Vande Bharat Train in comparison to the other trains.

55% of the respondents are too satisfied with the overall experience of
the train, 27% of the respondents are satisfied,
5% of the respondents rate below average and
14% of the respondents found it reasonable to use.

91% of respondents have faith in this project

in future.
82% of the respondents would likely to support this plan in
future and it is affordable to them

Here are the suggestions and point of view of the respondents overall:
Thus, many people are aware of this train and some have experienced/ used this
transportation although 90% of the respondents seems to be in favour of this initiative of the
Government as well as they hope for the betterment of the society and for the developed
nation.

Conclusion
The Vande Bharat Express is a necessary step towards modernizing and upgrading the Indian
Railways. While it may be seen as a luxurious option for some travellers, it is a necessary
investment for the country's transportation infrastructure.
The Vande Bharat Express has been a significant achievement for Indian Railways and a step
towards improving transportation infrastructure in the country. The train’s success has
inspired the development of other high-speed trains in India, and there are plans to expand its
operations to more routes across the country. The future of high-speed rail in India looks
promising, and the Vande Bharat Express has set the standard for what can be
achieved in this field.
These semi-high-speed trains aim to reduce travel time and provide airplane-like amenities at
an economical rate. PM Modi inaugurates two new Vande Bharat Express trains on July 7,
2023, taking the total count to 25.
The train's speed, comfort, amenities, and safety features make it a convenient and
comfortable mode of transport for domestic travellers. It is a testament to the country's
commitment to improving its transportation infrastructure and providing a better
experience for passenger.
Reference
https://icf.indianrailways.gov.in/view_section.jsp?lang=0&id=0,295,329
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/transportation/railways/new-upgraded-vande-
bharat-trains-to-cost-about-rs-115-crore-officials/articleshow/91838152.cms
https://byjus.com/free-ias-prep/vande-bharat-trains-upsc-notes/
https://indianrailways.gov.in/railwayboard/rb/tender/1651132598426_4_SpecificationsandSta
ndardsforVandeBharatTrains_TrainsetspecMDspec39804-04-22.pdf

Microsoft Forms:
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-CiDBURVI3MTg3UkZCUTFBRUc4Mlg3Q0pXM0hQQy4u