HISTORY OF MASS TRANSIT

Mass transit, also called mass transportation, or public transportation,

the movement of people within urban areas using group travel
technologies such as buses and trains. The essential feature of mass
transportation is that many people are carried in the same vehicle (e.g.,
buses) or collection of attached vehicles (trains).
Mass transit systems may be owned by private, profit-making
companies or by governments or quasi-government agencies that may
not operate for profit.
Evolution of urban mass transportation
Growth in the 19th century
The history of urban mass transportation is first a story of the evolution
of technology, from walking, to riding animals, to riding in groups on
vehicles pulled by animals, and eventually to cable cars, larger-capacity
steam-powered trains, electric trains, and motor buses powered by
internal-combustion engines. It is a story of gradually increasing speed,
vehicle capacity, and range of travel that has shaped cities and
structured the lives of those who live in them.
1. The horse-drawn omnibus, first used in France in 1828, allowed as
many as 25 or 50 people to share a ride across muddy urban
streets.
2. New York City in 1832, operators installed rails in the streets to
provide a smooth roadbed both for the benefit of passengers and
to minimize the energy required to pull the vehicles.

3. The cable car, a rail vehicle dragged by a long cable pulled by

steam power from a central station, was invented in 1873 to
master the steep hills of San Francisco. This idea spread to
Chicago and other cities in order to avoid the unpleasant side
effects of horses in dense urban areas.
4. Trains were efficient for carrying large numbers of travelers
because a single guide way (track) could carry many trains each
day, and the number of workers did not have to increase in
proportion to the number of vehicles: one motorman or engineer
could operate a train with many cars, perhaps with the help of
one or two conductors to collect fares.
5. In the middle of the 19th century, the motive power for urban
mass transportation advanced to independent steam locomotives,
which could pull many cars and thus serve busier routes. Steam
locomotives operated over longer distances than cable cars, and
they were more reliable and considerably faster because they did
not depend on a single, fragile cable.
6. Some cities, starting with New York in 1868, constructed elevated
rail transit lines to accomplish the same end. It was less costly and
dangerous to build a rail line above the street on an iron and steel
trestle at the second-story level, as compared with digging a
tunnel. It soon became apparent, however, that the noise of
trains rumbling by, the street obstructions of columns to support
rail structures, and the dark areas created below these facilities
were high prices to pay for rapid urban transit.

MASS TRANSIT IN INDIA:Mass transit in India is still at a very nascent stage . Most of the
large cities are now building their own Metro systems. Delhi (and
National Capital Region) is probably the only one fully built out.
Others are barely scratching the surface.
Rapid transit in India consists of bus, metro, monorail and light rail
systems. The first rapid transit system in India was the Kolkata
Metro, which started operations in 1984. The Delhi Metro was
India's first modern metro and the third rapid transit system in
India overall, after the Kolkata Metro and Chennai Mass Rapid
Transit System (Chennai MRTS), beginning operations in 2002.
Rapid Metro Rail Gurgaon, which started operations in November
2013, is India's first privately owned and operated metro.[1] The
Mumbai Monorail, which opened on 7 February 2014 is the first
monorail in India, since the closing of the Patiala State Monorail
Train ways in 1927.
BUS RAPID TRANSIT
Established BRTS: - Ahemadabad, Delhi, Indore, Jaipur, Pune,
Rajkot, Surat, Vijayawada
Underconstruction BRTS: - Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Hubli-Dharwar,
Kolkata, Mumbai, Visakhapatnam.
Currently planning BRTS: - Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore,
Hyderabad, Lucknow, Madurai, Mysore, Nagpur, Tiruchirappalli.
METRO RAILS
Metro rail lines in India are composed of both standard gauge and
broad gauge. Projects like the Delhi Metro used broad gauge for
their earliest lines but most new projects in India are on standard
gauge as rolling stock imported from Europe is on Standard

Gauge. One exception is the Ahmedabad Metro, which will use

Broad gauge, as there is more space available inside the coach.
Established metro rails: - Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi, Bangalore,
Gurgaon, Mumbai.
MONORAIL
The first monorail in India was the Kundala Valley Railway in
Kundala Valley, near Munnar, Kerala. It was a privately owned
monorail system, which operated from 1902 to 1908. That year
the system was converted to a narrow gauge railway, which
operated till 1924, when it was destroyed completely by floods.
The Patiala State Monorail Train ways which opened in February
1907 and closed in 1927 was the second monorail system in India.
The Mumbai Monorail, which opened on 2 February 2014 is the
first operational monorail in India, since the closing of the Patiala
State Monorail Train ways in 1927.
Submitted by
DEBJANI PANDA
14-21-313