In her budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government plans to deploy two new technologies — ‘MetroLite’ and ‘MetroNeo’ –to provide metro rail systems at much lesser cost with same experience, convenience and safety in tier-2 cities and peripheral areas of tier-1 cities.
What is MetroNeo?
- MetroNeo is a Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) that aims to provide a safe, eco-friendly, comfortable and reliable transportation alternative to the city of Nashik.
- Nashik will become the first city in Maharashtra to adopt this Mass Rapid Transit System.
- MetroNeo is a preferred mass transport facility in cities where the ridership is less than 10,000 peak hour peak direction traffic (phpdt).
- MetroNeo will make use of a series of electric bus coaches that vary in length from between 18 and 25 metres, each of which can, reportedly, carry between 200 and 300 passengers.
- The air-conditioned electric coaches will be powered by an overhead electric wire.
- The coaches will run on rubber tyres.
- The coaches and tyres are both, smaller and lighter than a typical Metro train.
- The mero neo will run on a road slab (elevated/at-grade).
- ‘Metro neo’ would also act as feeder system to high capacity metro.
