Will Indian Railways be held up to global punctuality standards after SC ruling?

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Earlier this week, the Supreme Court ordered Indian Railways to pay compensation of Rs 30,000 to a man who missed a flight from Jammu to Srinagar because the Ajmer-Jammu Express reached its destination four hours late.

“These are the days of competition and accountability. If public transportation has to survive and compete with private players, they have to improve the system and their working culture.” a bench of justices M.R. Shah and Aniruddha Bose observed in the September 7 order.

“Citizens/passengers cannot be at the mercy of the authorities/administration. Somebody has to accept the responsibility,” the judges said.

The ruling was delivered just a few weeks after 2,035 passengers of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation's Delhi-Lucknow Tejas Express were awarded Rs 4.5 lakh in collective compensation for the train running late on August 21 and August 22.

The judgment was the first of its kind in India, where delays are a fact of everyday travel on Indian Railways.

What does the ruling mean for Indian Railways passengers? 

In the pre-COVID era, the state-run transporter operated more than 13,000 trains daily across a network of tracks stretching more than 120,000 kilometers, carrying more than 22 million passengers daily to the more than 7,000 stations in the country.

Market experts and analysts expect the SC’s decision to help lift Indian Railways' on-time performance and punctuality standards.

"The railway system in India is infamous for its operational bottlenecks and in the past we have seen trains getting delayed by multiple hours regularly. The Supreme Court's decision not only holds the Indian Railways accountable for its operational efficiencies but also provides customers a way to address their grievances if delays are happening regularly," a senior lawyer from a leading law firm told Moneycontrol.

Kumar Saurabh Singh, partner at Khaitan & Co, said the SC's order will set a precedent as Indian Railways looks to private entities to operate passenger trains and increase its revenues from freight operations.

The judgment is seen in a positive light by corporate entities that use Indian Railways' freight services to transport goods.

"The SC's decision will hold Indian Railways accountable for its operations and delays will no longer just be brushed away," an executive with an automobile company that uses Indian Railways freight service told Moneycontrol. The executive didn’t want to be named.

The SC's decision may lead to stricter implementation of punctuality standards by the railroad transporter, experts said.

The national carrier has already promised to compensate passengers of IRCTC's Delhi-Lucknow Tejas Express in case of delays. An amount of Rs 100 will be paid in case the delay is for over an hour and Rs 250 for delays of over two hours.

Similarly, Indian Railways, in its draft key performance indicators for private entities to run passenger trains, said the concessionaires will have to pay heavy penalties in case the trains they operate are delayed or even reach their destination early.

 How often are trains delayed in India? 

A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) released in 2018 said that in 2017-2018, Indian Railways reported its worst performance in punctuality terms in three years.

Around 30 percent of all trains ran late in 2017-18, according to official data. The punctuality rate for express and mail trains in 2016-2017 was 76.69 percent; it fell to 71.39% in 2017-2018, the CAG said in its report.

The report highlighted that there wasn’t enough space for trains at stations, which causes unprecedented delays. The national auditor said delays were caused also because railway stations didn’t have enough platforms.

Not all platforms in a station can accommodate trains with 24 or more coaches; stations had only a few washing pit lines and stabling lines for trains.

CAG underlined the fact that the focus of the government has been mainly on the convenience of passengers and not on how to eliminate delays.

In a reply to Parliament in 2019, the railway ministry said that in March that year, an average of 389 trains had been delayed on a daily basis. The figure was 628 for April and 517 for May 2019.

But the ministry noted that because of steps taken to reduce delays, the “number of minutes lost in passenger and express trains have decreased from 36,72,043 and 27,30,830 in March 2018 to 25,04,263 and 13,45,067 in March 2019".

International comparison

Train delays are not just a common phenomenon in India; most countries publish statistics that show what percentage of their trains arrive on time. In India, if a train is delayed by more than 15 minutes, it is classified as being late.

Russia and China are the two biggest countries where trains have reported the best on-time performance. According to Russian Railways’ Press Service, in 2018, the country’s main railway company reported over 98 percent of trains arriving at their destination on time. In China, around 91 percent of all trains arrived on time in 2018.

In the US, a train is classified as being on time if it arrives 10 minutes after the estimated arrival time for journeys up to 250 miles; that increases to 30 minutes for journeys of more than 550 miles. The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, or Amtrak, in 2018 reported that 27 percent of its trains ran late.

In Germany, trains are asked to reach their final destination within six minutes of the scheduled time. In 2018, about 75 percent of long-distance trains in Germany were more than six minutes late.

In Australia, trains are given between five and 11 minutes’ leeway to arrive at their final destination.

In the UK, in 2018,  Network Rail, the largest rail operator in the country, reported that its trains arrive on time, or within five minutes of the scheduled arrival time,  89.9 percent of the time.

What is the Indian Railways doing to improve punctuality?

Punctuality of trains is being monitored at multiple levels – the Railway Board, and divisional and zonal levels, officials at the ministry of railways said.

“The train rakes are being standardized and spare rakes are also being provided to help improve punctuality and the ministry is also working towards removing all infrastructure bottlenecks in a proper and planned manner,” a senior official told Moneycontrol on condition of anonymity.

He added that for better time management, the ministry was upgrading Indian Railways’ signaling assets and installing modern signaling systems to ensure on-time operations.

The ministry, in a response to questions, told Parliament that it was engaging in “preventive maintenance of assets to minimize asset failures" and also undertaking capacity enhancement projects. It is installing automated systems for the smooth running of trains.

The ministry is looking to reduce the duration of stoppages at major terminals to ensure the punctuality of trains. Railway timetables are being rationalized so that trains running at similar speeds are classified into one group. In addition, bypass stations are also being set up to avoid reversing the locomotive.