Bullet train would only reduce travel time for elites
There has been a lot of debate on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train in the media. The debate has largely focused on whether, with so many competing priorities of upgradation, maintenance and above all safety, the railways should allocate resources to reduce a microscopic elite minority's travel time.
However, the question of high-speed rail goes beyond the problem of resource allocation, or for that matter, speed.
The biggest advantage of increased speeds is not the convenience to the traveller but an increase in capacity. More trains can be scheduled every day on the same track at higher speeds; a doubling in speed would mean a doubling in capacity. One might think that would mean bidding adieu to the great IRCTC tatkal lottery, but that's not the case. The ticket priced at several thousands of rupees is unaffordable for travellers sans the most affluent. We might end up with the existing congestion plus a very expensive, massively underutilised loss making capacity.
Another advantage of high-speed rail might be cutting down on carbon emissions by shifting passenger traffic from air and road to the new network. However, what inevitably happens with any new transport capacity creation, particularly in a fast-growing country like India, is seldom transformative, ie, it doesn't shift traffic from one mode to another. It rather has an additive impact which means it results in an increase of traffic for all modes of travel.
The bullet train service might well have a capacity of several times the commercial aviation capacity between the two cities and perhaps even the existing conventional rail capacity. From a carbon emissions point of view, it might make sense to double the conventional track capacity than to introduce a bullet train service, as conventional rail services are more carbon efficient than high-speed rail.
If at all there will be a carbon benefit from high-speed rail, it will only come from drastic measures such as simultaneously ceasing all commercial aviation between the two cities and banning all private cars from the faster expressways.
Another much touted benefit is the impetus it will give to the economic life of small towns by connecting them to the metropolis. However, experience has often shown that megacities such as London (and perhaps Mumbai), are actually very good at centralisation and suck businesses out of vibrant small towns leaving behind commuter towns and countryside opened up for extended urban sprawl.
High-speed rail has been controversial all over the world, including in Britain and the United States; they are far from successful even in that land of milk and honey that is China. While environmental issues may not prove to be as much of a hurdle in India as they often do in the rich world, we still need to think very carefully about bullet trains. We may assume that this is merely a one-off costly experiment but such projects are usually part of an overall new vision of transport planning.
We may be experimenting with an inappropriate system, just as we have been with tiny Metro lines in tinier cities where other transport solutions may be more appropriate.