'Taxi Cabs' will run very fast in the country, American ways will be adopted for safety

The country's first much-awaited Pod Cab is heading towards becoming a reality. A high-level committee has recommended a fresh bidding for this. Strict security measures will be taken in the form of the rules of the American body for 'pod taxi' in India.

Pod Taxi Plan is also known as Personal Rapid Transit (PRT). The Rs 4,000-crore project is an ambitious project of Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has been entrusted the responsibility of implementing this scheme in Delhi Gurgaon Corridor (12.30 Km).

This project will be implemented on public-private partnership (PPP) basis. A committee led by Transport expert SK Dharmadhikari has asked to issue a fresh letter (EOI) for this. In addition to the Automated People Movers (APM) standards and the Pillio, the recommendations of the Commission will include general safety standards.

This five-member committee has been constituted for the technical and security standards of PRT. This ambitious project was delayed due to some objections by the Policy Commission. The Commission has asked the Highways Ministry to ask the initial bidder to prepare a one-kilometer pilot route because all the technologies have not yet been tested for this. This was followed by delay due to the formation of a high-level committee. This committee has to decide security and other things.

Gadkari said, the barriers have been dispelled, we will soon issue tenders for the Pod Taxi project. The security concerns will be resolved according to the recommendations of the committee. This Dhaula Kuan-Manesar route will be a major step for reducing congestion and it will revolutionize transport.

PRT is a modern public transport system in which automated electric pod car is used to provide feeder and shuttle services like tricky. This service will be for a small group of passengers. The committee has recommended the preparation of applications for quota after discussions with interested players. Apart from this, the committee has also explained the need for assessment based on performance in the section of the test.