The Future of Rail
Opportunities for energy and the environment
IEA 2019. All rights reserved.
•They will reduce freight traffic on existing lines, making way for more passenger train traffic, improving passenger train reliability and allowing passenger trains to attain higher speeds.
The government has a longer term vision to build DFCs along the quadrilateral linking the four cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata (the so called “Golden Quadrilateral”) and its two diagonals (Planning Commission, 2014). Improving freight transport on these lines is a strategic
Page | 140 priority, given that 58% of Indian Railways freight traffic occurs on these routes, which, in recent years, have become heavily congested (DFCCIL, 2018).
IEA 2019. All rights reserved.
Rail transport energy demand and emissions
Energy demand from rail transport
As in other countries, rail transport in India is characterised by lower energy intensity than other modes of transport (Figure 4.4). Although passenger light-duty vehicles in India are normally much smaller than in other countries and hence use less fuel, on average, per kilometre driven, the energy intensity of passenger rail transport is still 93% lower than that of passenger light-duty vehicles (IEA, 2018a). In the freight sector, for each tonne-kilometre, railways consume about 84% less energy than a medium-sized freight truck.
Figure 4.4 Energy intensity by transportation mode in India, 2017
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toe/million tonne-km |
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Notes: toe = tonnes of oil equivalent. Energy intensity of rail is calculated as the weighted average of all rail technologies. Source: IEA (2018a).
Key message • In 2017, rail transport in India consumed 18 toe less per million passenger-kilometre than small and medium cars, and 17 toe less per million tonne-kilometre than medium freight trucks.
In 2017, rail’s share of total transport energy use was 4%, significantly lower than rail’s share in passenger and freight transport activity (IEA, 2018a).11 India’s rail sector in 2017 consumed approximately 4.1 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) of energy to meet its traction requirements. At 0.04 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (mb/d), diesel was the primary
11 The share of rail is calculated accounting for all passenger and freight transport modes, except for waterborne transport (due to data availability limitations).
IEA 2019. All rights reserved.
The Future of Rail
Opportunities for energy and the environment
fuel, accounting for more than half of the total. While this level of consumption is significant, account also needs to be taken of the oil savings attributable to rail travel: if all the passenger and freight traffic that is currently on rail instead was carried by road, oil product demand would be 0.6 mb/d.12
At around 22 terawatt-hours (TWh), the electricity used by Indian trains accounted for less than
2% of total Indian electricity demand in 2017 (IEA, 2018b). Electricity is used both for passenger Page | 141 and freight services. Within the category of passenger services, all metros are electrified, while
54% of conventional rail activity (in passenger-kilometres) uses electricity. A higher percentage of freight traffic is hauled by electric traction. In 2017, electricity provided about 65% of total freight energy use, in terms of tonne-kilometres (Indian Railways, 2018b) (Figure 4.5).
Figure 4.5 Conventional train traffic by type of traction in India, 1995-2017
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km-trainofShare |
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80% |
passengerelectricof - |
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70% |
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60% |
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40% |
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30% |
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20% |
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10% |
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10% |
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0% |
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Notes: EMU = electric multiple unit); Loco = locomotive.
Source: IEA based on Indian Railways (2018b).
Key message • Freight rail traffic is dominated by electric trains.
Rail electrification has been an important objective of Indian policy since 1960. The electrified share of the rail network (in terms of route length, including conventional rail and metros) has increased from 24% in 2000 to 38% in 2017 (Figure 4.6). In parallel, a doubling and tripling of the capacity of the most utilised lines have been achieved and much accomplished in terms of conversion from narrow gauge and metre gauge to broad gauge (Indian Railways, 2018b). By 2017, the share of broad gauge reached 92%.13 For conventional rail, almost all double and multiple track sections and electrified routes are broad gauge, while narrow and metre gauge routes are largely single track, non-electrified routes.
IEA 2019. All rights reserved.
12This result is obtained on the assumption that passenger rail would be replaced by aviation, cars, buses and two/threewheelers, that freight rail would be replaced by heavy freight trucks and that all the energy demand is oil. The weighted average fuel economy of passenger transport in India in 2017 is 10 toe/million passenger-kilometre and that for freight trucks is 30 toe/million tonne-kilometre (IEA, 2018a).
13The share of traffic on narrow and medium gauge tracks is very low compared to the share on broad gauge tracks (Indian
Railways, 2018b). The size of broad gauge tracks in India is 1.676 metres.
The Future of Rail
Opportunities for energy and the environment
IEA 2019. All rights reserved.
Figure 4.6 Electrification of the Indian railway network and the share of broad gauge, 1995-2017
km
Page | 142
140 000
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0
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Electrified
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20% share
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Notes: Route length includes both conventional rail and metro rail; track length includes only conventional rail. Sources: IEA based on Indian Railways (2018b) and Sinha (2018a).
Key message • The overall extension of route length in India has been limited. Projects have mainly involved doubling or tripling the capacity of selected lines, gauge conversion and electrification.
IEA 2019. All rights reserved.
Electric locomotives and electric multiple units (EMUs) are normally equipped with regenerative braking, a technology that converts the kinetic energy of the train (during braking) into power that is injected back into the overhead lines and can be used by other trains circulating on the same route, thus reducing overall electricity demand.
Indian Railways is making serious efforts to electrify the railway system and improve the efficiency of electric traction, but it is also making operational and technological improvements to its diesel train fleet (Financial Express, 2018). For passenger trains on short routes, the first set of measures includes replacing diesel locomotives by diesel-electric multiple units (DEMU), providing fuel savings of approximately 10%. Future plans include installing auxiliary power units on all new diesel locomotives, introducing Common Rail Electronic Direct Injection on the fleet of diesel locomotives, and applying other fuel efficiency measures (Indian Railways, 2018a). Moreover, in 2015, Indian Railways started blending bio-diesel at a 5% share and, since then, such blending has been progressively introduced across a number of locations (Indian Railways, 2018b). Indian Railways also has plans to change the system used to provide power to coaches from the End-on-Generation to the Head-on-Generation scheme, which allows power for air conditioning and lighting in the coaches to be drawn from the locomotive, instead of from diesel generators installed at both ends of the train. This is a means of reducing diesel consumption (Indian Railways, 2018a).
GHG emissions and local pollutants
As elsewhere, the performance of rail with respect to road transport in terms of well-to-wheel (WTW) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions largely depends on the carbon intensity of the power grid, particularly because electricity already accounts for a large share of energy use in rail in India. Despite the generally high carbon intensity of the power mix, rail in India currently avoids, on average, emissions of nearly 60 grammes of carbon-dioxide equivalent (g CO2-eq) per passenger-kilometre, compared with a small and medium-size car, and around 50 g CO2-eq per