IGI Airport To Have Its Own Metro Connecting The Terminals

Air Train at the IGI airport in New Delhi is likely to get launched soon. It is a metro that is specifically meant for the passengers to move from one terminal to another. Many important and influential airports of the world like London Heathrow, New York’s JFK, already have these metro lines connecting different terminals of the Indira Gandhi International airport. New Delhi’s will be the first airport in India to flaunt about this development.

DIAL (Delhi International Airport Private Limited), has proposed to start an Automated People Mover (APM) between the three terminals on the IGI airport – T1, T2 and T3. Earlier, the work of this APM was planned to start in 2020 when the construction of T4 is also supposed to begin. But keeping in mind the volume of traffic and the speedy growth at the IGI airport, the aviation ministry changed the decision in favour of early launch of the metro project. It has told DIAL to start executing the work on APM and make the metro at IGI airport ready as soon as possible.

Currently, the passengers travel between the terminals through buses. Before the tunnel road was build, it used take up to around 45 minutes. But as tunnel road has made the way shorter, it takes up to around 30 minutes.

The DMRC will be consulted by the DIAL to do a technical research on the routing to come out with estimates for this air train project. A New York based firm has also been consulted for the same which has come out with a report, according to which, four stations will be there – at T1, Cargo terminal, Aerocity, and a common for T2/T4.

Data is being collected on the estimated number of inter-terminal transfers in the future years by the airport operator, to decide upon the frequency and the number of coaches.

The Air Train at IGI International Airport is likely to start with just two coaches with leaving at intervals of 2-3 minutes. The frequency and capacity of this train will depend on the intensity of traffic of people.

DIAL is waiting for the report and the estimates from the DMRC to further move up to AERA for the decisions of funding for construction of metro connecting IGI Airport terminals.