Water Metro is a socio-economic project for improving the connectivity of the islanders and thereby giving them access to more opportunities. This social commitment shall be met. With the first phase, a daily ridership of 34000 is expected, shares Sajan P John, Chief Operating Officer, Kochi Water Metro Ltd, with Nisha Samant of Elets News Network (ENN).

The Kochi Water Metro Ltd, is playing a significant role in providing eco-friendly transportation solutions in Kochi. Can you describe the latest initiatives taken by the company to achieve this goal, and how is the company leveraging technology to enhance its services?

Water transport, being the most energy efficient transport system among all modes is inherently climate friendly. However, Water Metro took a big leap by going further bringing electric mobility into an urban water transport project. The task was to build extremely efficient vessels and targets were set to get a Boat with a propulsion power of nearly 50% over the conventional designs. The final product could achieve it even better.

Water metro wanted to minimize the damage to ecological system as much as possible and this played a critical role in the design. Dredging is reduced to a bare minimum and no canal is widened, instead, Boats were brought down to suitable size and draft. A special design of hulls reduced the waves (wake wash) created by speeding the boat to very minimal. Flora and Fauna are not disturbed, and banks are protected.

Enhanced safety and security is provided by introducing the latest technologies. Water Metro opted for LTO Battery, which are safest of the batteries commercially available. While the battery system uses cell level monitoring, higher safety is ensured by enhanced fire fighting systems, in the unlikely event of a trigger.

Best of navigational systems including radar, thermal camera, GPS enabled navigation, VHF and DMR communication facilities enhance its safe night operational capability. Water Metro established its operating control centre at Vytila, which can effectively monitor the entire fleet from a single location. An automatic boat location system communicates to OCC live, while critical parameters of individual boats are being transmitted to OCC along with. About 20 cameras per vessel, monitoring each of its compartments live, are available at OCC.

A passenger control system is added to the boarding / alighting point at Berths that prevents any chance of overcrowding of Boats, which is identified as the single largest cause of ferry accidents in the past, worldwide. The system is first time in the world, in water transport.

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In short, the enhanced technology applications offer passenger safety and security which commuters can visibly feel themselves and otherwise benefit the company in offering a reliable, punctual, efficient operation. The health of fleet can be maintained in a much more efficient way by condition monitoring, which indirectly benefits the same commuters.

The Kochi Water Metro Ltd, is a Joint Venture between the Govt of Kerala and the private sector. Can you describe the challenges and benefits of such a partnership and how the company is working with partners to achieve its goals?

Kochi Water Metro is a joint venture between Govt of Kerala and Kochi Metro Rail Limited. KMRL has built a reputation of one of the best metros in India and was successful in bringing a new culture to urban transport of Kochi. The association with KMRL would be extremely beneficial for KWML in two fronts:

a) A seamless travel experience for the passengers, which would persuade more to adapt to public transport
b) Complement each other to build an integrated transport solution.

A common ticket solution is already introduced in digital platform and mobile ticketing using the same mobile application. Such close cooperation would ultimately benefit both organizations in providing a better experience to the public.

Not many challenges are expected in the partnership since both are driven by similar ideals but working in different domains. Even when something arises a resolution would be easy and fast. While ticketing is common, the fares are worked out in different philosophies. There also no conflict arises.

The Kochi Water Metro Ltd., is focused on providing sustainable and eco-friendly transportation solutions in Kochi. Can you describe the ways in which the company is achieving this goal and how does your role as COO support these efforts?

Though the Water Metro Boats are built as hybrid electric boats with diesel generators also onboard, except in compelling circumstances of safety or emergency, all effort will be to run the boats as pure electric, as a fundamental philosophy.

Kochi Water Metro looks forward to fully carbon neutral the earliest. A target would soon be fixed to achieve this goal. 100% of its energy usage shall be from land based renewables, then. This would be taken as a Corporate environment responsibility.

Vembanadu lake is a declared critically vulnerable coastal area, and Water Metro is an effort to save the Kochi city and vembanadu lake from the ever increasing pollution levels. Making Water Metro a preferred mode of travel would largely achieve the broader goals.

By connecting the beautiful islands of Kochi, we intent, not only provides the island people better livelihoods and opportunities, but also boosts responsible nature friendly tourism. Company would provide the infrastructure for the diversified growth, and the responsibility of COO is to build a culture for the company with genuine efforts to support the people with genuine efforts.

As COO of the Kochi Water Metro Ltd., what’s your vision for the company over the next 5-10 years? How do you plan to expand the company’s services and reach, and what challenges do you anticipate along the way?

The vision is to bring in a systematic change in the commuting behavior of the general public and induce a modal shift towards public transport, thereby achieving the larger goals of sustainability. In the short term, Water Metro will be made a benchmark for the future water transport systems in the country. Water Metro is a socioeconomic project for improving the connectivity of the islanders and thereby giving them access to more opportunities. This social commitment shall be met. With the first phase, a daily ridership of 34000 is expected. There’s a potential to enhance it to over a lakh with a boost in tourism activities and transit oriented development that water metro can induce. There is no doubt that backwaters of Kochi have tremendous scope for expansion of the water transport system. This includes scope for Ro-Ro systems. On the technology side, Water Metro intends to explore possibilities of green fuels like Hydrogen. We are keenly looking for 5G getting stabilized to fast track a change. On the ticketing side, Water Metro wants to be fully digital at the earliest.

Also Read | Kochi Metro leading the rail transformation in India

There are operational challenges such as:-

a) Maintenance of the navigation channels, which are prone to siltation,
b) The ever-increasing water hyacinth menace of back waters which needs development of a permanent weed management system,
c) Bringing discipline into water navigation by the crisscrossing tourist boats and country boats etc.

There are human resource challenges in terms of availability of skilled people operating the new generation boats for a rapid expansion. Identifying it as one of the critical aspects, we have already started training programs to cater to the needs of future requirements.

There are regulatory challenges as the present legislation needs to be adapted to changing technological innovations. New inland vessel rules are being framed and as stakeholders we are actively involved in taking up different concerns of the industry.

Strategically, water metro will build a brand value which will be identified with or complimentary to the city.

The technological advancement made is at world standard and in true spirit of Atmanirbhar Bharat. The technical expertise and experience gained as a pioneer in the field shall be utilized for building similar systems, and Water Metro shall offer its services for all such development.

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