The Times of India reports:

As a result of numerous complaints regarding excess baggage being towed into train compartments, the Indian Railways has decided to strictly enforce its over-three-decades-old baggage allowance rules, which will see passengers paying up to six times the stipulated amount as penalty, if caught travelling with overweight luggage, an official said today.

I never even knew that these baggage rules existed. All these years, I’ve simply assumed that there were no formal baggage limits; that space constraints and being reasonable to fellow passengers is all that stops people from carrying waaay too much stuff with them on to trains. Unfortunately, people often do carry too much stuff with them, and to the level of straining and breaking limits of reason.

Which is why the rule enforcement itself, to me, is entirely justified. Even in the little travel that I have done via Indian Railways in the recent past, people carrying way too much luggage, both in quantity and physical size, is way too common for comfort.

The important question, though, is how much luggage is allowed? After all, the railways is used in a vast majority by people for whom expense is a major factor.

According to the prescribed norms, a sleeper class and a second class passenger can carry luggage weighing 40 kg and 35 kg respectively without paying any extra money and a maximum of 80 kg and 70 kg respectively by paying for the excess luggage at the parcel office. The excess luggage would have to be put in the luggage van.

[…]

For example, if a passenger is travelling 500 km with luggage weighing 80 kg in the sleeper class, he can book his excess baggage of 40 kg for Rs 109 in the luggage van.

[…]

Similarly, an AC first class passenger can carry 70 kg of luggage for free and a maximum of 150 kg, after paying a fee for the excess 80 kg.

An AC two-tier passenger can carry 50 kg of luggage for free and a maximum of 100 kg by paying a fee for the excess 50 kg.

Only 35-40kg for the second class passenger? That seems a little on the lower side. Barely a couple of suitcases, perhaps? In our international travel to and from the USA we’re allowed 46kg in two checked in suitcases, along with additional cabin baggage; surely a railway compartment should be able to accommodate more per passenger? The limits for the AC classes seem a little more reasonable, but still low considering that fewer passengers occupy the same compartment area.

The cost for extra baggage doesn’t seem too bad either. About Rs. 100 for essentially doubling the baggage allowance is hopefully okay, considering prices of other commodities, although I hope the baggage charges increase with the class of tickets. The cheapest tickets should really also have the cheapest excess baggage charges, considering the budget conscious traveler.

I’m most concerned, though, with two things. One, the excess luggage is to be placed in a separate luggage van. (Come to think of it, I’ve always known these luggage vans exist on trains. I always assumed they were for freight or oversized luggage. Huh.) I’m guessing the luggage van is perfectly safe with no fear of theft, but I’m also certain many, many passengers will take a long time to be comfortable with the idea of their bags not being right next to them. (Although, side benefit: if the bags aren’t just lying around in the compartment, they’re safer from theft.)

Two, they say they will “enforce” the law by random checks. This is bad, especially in India, where: (a) this situation is ripe with bribing opportunities, and (b) random checking introduces the concept of fairness between travelers who got caught and who didn’t. I really hope they figure out a more robust way of executing this.

In concept, the baggage allowance idea seems reasonable, but I hope they do a good job of the current idea, and I really hope they revisit the current ideas and update them based on feedback and usage data. The Indian Railways is a lifeline in India, and things like this can have a major effect either way.

India’s plans about building a high speed rail route connecting Mumbai and Ahmedabad have been in the news lately. The project is funded by a low-interest loan from Japan (covering 80% of the cost of the project), and will make use of Japanese high-speed rail technology used for the Shinkansen.

Of course, along with the project being in the news, it is also subject to critique in news articles, as any expensive government venture is bound to (and should!) be. In many of the articles, though, I found one common piece of information mentioned over and over:

According to a study conducted by IIM Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train will need to make 100 trips daily and carry 88,000-118,000 passengers per day to be financially viable. This figure could well be way above the total number of passengers travelling between the two cities on any given day.

In fact, searching the internet with the name of the article in question (Dedicated High Speed Railway (HSR) Networks in India: Issues in Development) provides a result that looks like this:

Google Search Result. (Source)

They all mention the same report, and all mention the exact same language about “requiring 100 trips a day”. None, however, actually provide links for the curious reader, nor provide any context or analysis. Well, I was curious, so I tried to find and read the actual report.

This is the the report I found online. It’s co-authored by Prof. G. Raghuram as mentioned in all the newspaper reports, and calls itself “an abridged version of an IIMA working paper with the same title.” Unfortunately, the IIMA working paper link is broken, and the Wayback Machine doesn’t have it archived either. (P.S.: Between the time that I found and read the report, and I finished writing this piece, the webpage hosting the report seems to have gone dead. No matter, the Wayback Machine has it cached. Go read!)

Anyhow, the report is a great read. After reading it, though, I was reminded of how poor India’s average journalism has come to be. What every news article printed is actually in the report being cited, and yet — and yet! — what they printed is a complete misrepresentation of the entire point and view of the report.

Let’s start with the conclusions of the report. The following are direct quotes from the Conclusions section:

• Given that India is a developing country, the primary concern is whether the funds for such a project could be better utilised in other domains, including in upgrading conventional rail. However, the Japanese funding to the tune of 80% of the project cost may not be available for other uses.
• there are many positive benefits and externalities of the HSR which would be useful in India’s overall aspirational development. These externalities include technology percolation into other domains, economic development, game-changing sense of connectivity, and national pride due to cutting-edge infrastructure. In such a context, it is a good idea to begin and learn.
• The Mumbai-Ahmedabad route is a good choice for the first route, since it connects India’s first and seventh most populous cities, with significant economic development in the 500 km corridor between them.
• The low cost Japanese financing has been a great catalyst. Though it is a tied funding with significant mandatory procurement from Japan, it cannot do much harm since Japan is at the cutting edge of HSR technology with over 50 years of experience.

Evidently, the overarching view of the article is not that “100 trips will be needed per day…”. Let’s talk about that part next, then. Here’s the crucial paragraph from the article:

Assuming that 20% (apart from the 80% Japanese funding at concessional rates) of the total cost of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route would be funded by the Government of India (GoI) with an expected 8% annual return during the operational phase, the estimated daily financing costs for the route would be INR 106 million from when the repayment of the loan kicks in. We take this to be the 16th year (till when the Japanese loan has a moratorium), by when the ramp-up of traffic should have occurred. The project cost includes the ‘interest during construction’ for seven years. Over the remaining eight ramp-up years, we assume that there would be enough operating surplus to cover the interest payments. Subsequent to this, the GoI portion is treated as an equity with only interest due, but no principal repayment. Taking an average fare of INR 5.00 per km for the route with intermediate stops and for a scenario of 0.4 operating ratio, we arrive at a daily required ridership of 118,000 passengers (which translates to 43 million passengers annually). At an average of 1000 passengers per train, over 100 services per day (50 per direction) would be required.

What this means is that if the financing for the rail route is to be paid from the revenue from the rail route only, then about 118000 passengers, at an average of 1000 per train, over 100 services daily, would need to travel on the route. The newspaper articles only mention the raw number, with a vague notion that this is impractical or impossible to achieve. Two points should be considered, though. First, perhaps it isn’t necessary that revenue from the rail route matches the required financing. Perhaps the government can pay for the financing in the short term, and accrue revenue from the rail route to replenish its coffers in the longer term. Second, what is the context for the “1000 per train, 100 services daily” figure? How does it compare to other high speed rail systems in other countries?

Considering the second point first, here is literally the very next paragraph in the report:

The feasibility report estimates for 2033 with a train configuration of 10/16 cars (750/1200 seats) require 52 trains per day per direction. As of 2016, some of the high-traffic HSR routes like Paris-Lyon (409 km), Shanghai-Nanjing (311 km) and Tokyo-Shin Osaka (552 km), though being parts of bigger networks themselves, have more than 85, 300 and 330 trains respectively running every day.

Well, then! In context, the “100 trains per day” number doesn’t look so bad, does it? Considering this information, perhaps the first point above regarding financing isn’t that big a concern, either? It would seem so from the report, since it makes no further comment regarding this matter, including in its conclusions.

There are other points that the news articles mention, such as the 500km distance of the route, as being detrimental to the success of the project (“Flights only take one hour!”). Even those points are considered and answered in the report. The report really is worth the read.

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The pros and cons of a large, time-consuming, and expensive government project should be debated — ernestly. However, the debate is derailed (forgive the pun) right at the beginning if the information being circulated is incomplete, or worse, plain wrong. Please, by all means, have the debate. Would everyone at least read the report that everyone is attempting to cite?

P.S.: Between the time that I found and read the report, and I finished writing this piece, the webpage hosting the report seems to have gone dead. No matter, the Wayback Machine has it cached. Go read!