You Might Zoom with the Speed of 80 Km/h with Pod Taxi Service in India

The pursuit of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is to build the first Pod taxi service in India. According to the late report, RIL will complete the first site for its prototype soon. For those who don’t know much about Pod taxi service, it is a self-driven or autonomous transport system for individual use.

Through Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings Ltd, Reliance Industries Limited had obtained a 12.7% stake in rapid transit system SkyTran. As stated by the contract, RIL will complete the site for Pod taxi service's prototype in India.

Actually, the idea of this service was firstly introduced by Nitin Gadkari in 2016. NITI Aayog cleared the proposals of the transport ministry for rapid transportation system using pod taxi. At the time, three global firms won for the approval were SkyTran, Metrino PRT and Ultra Global PRT.

However, the approval has some prerequisites that the technology should first be piloted on a 1km stretch, the bidders have to execute the testing at their own cost and risk. The pilot project also should be carried out in such a way that if the test is successful, it would be further extended to 15-20 km. The experts from The Niti Aayog had found that the energy consumed per km of the transit system is lower than other modes of transport.

A person who joined deal negotiations said for the prototype, several parts would be imported from the US while most of it would be made in India. Additionally, Reliance will help SkyTran with multiple technologies to run the project, consist of communication technology.

According to the term of the government, when the project is piloted successfully, the company will have to obtain separate agreements from both the state governments and central to build the infrastructure.

The report mentioned the cost of tracks running per km in both the directions will be Rs 100 crore. Suresh Prabhu, former Railway Minister reported that this cost was approximate 10 times the construction of a normal railway track. In 2015, the cost for the construction of 1km of the high-speed railway line was Rs 100-140 crore

The Pod taxi service idea does not like any existing modes of the railway system. It is an individual cab, self-driven transport, zooming ahead at the speed of 80km/h in the city. That means the Pod taxi will take you directly to the destination instead of making stops.