Track Allocation in Indian Railways – Institutional Design, Departmental Incentives, and the Allocation of Scarce Track Time

Details

• Creators:
  Shukla, Utsav
• Corporate Creators:
  University of California, Los Angeles. Institute of Transportation Studies
• Corporate Contributors:
  Government of India. Ministry of Railways
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Case Studies Governance Maintenance Operations Performance Pilot Studies Railroads Railroad Tracks Reliability
• Publication/ Report Number:
  LAS2604
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.17610/T6HK6V
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States ; India ; Japan ; England
• Edition:
  Final Report
• Corporate Publisher:
  University of California, Los Angeles. Institute of Transportation Studies
• Abstract:
  This capstone examines how Indian Railways allocates scarce track time between train operations and track maintenance. The same track that carries passenger and freight trains must also be made available for inspection, repair, and renewal. The study asks how institutional design and departmental incentives shape this allocation, and what changes can better align Operations and Maintenance with the wider goals of safety, reliability, and efficiency. The report uses a focused case-study method. It reviews Indian Railways’ rules on rolling block planning, line capacity, and maintenance access. It then studies six heavily used corridors through six indicators: passenger punctuality, freight speed, maintenance blocks granted against demand, block productivity, block overruns, and track-related failures. It also draws lessons from Britain, Japan, and India’s Dedicated Freight Corridor experience. The main finding is that the current system produces a stable but inefficient outcome. Trains continue to run and maintenance continues to happen, but both take place under congestion, rationing, repeated adjustment, uneven productivity, and weak commitment to planned blocks. The evidence shows that the problem is not simply too many trains or too few maintenance blocks. It is a governance problem. Departments work with different information, face different targets, and often protect themselves through defensive behavior. The report recommends a corridor-level pilot to make track-time decisions more credible. The pilot would require clearer maintenance requests, stronger commitment as execution approaches, visible tracking of deviations, recovery of lost maintenance time, and KPIs that measure not only block grants but also execution quality and corridor outcomes.
• Format:
  PDF
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:f2dd2c8adb753b830b77eb8550d67f662cf763a27a55974a65a8cab54a24a515e0e544573416bbcede799f3436726c6b02cd368ec30f9b43405ba0c0080ea098
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/92542/dot_92542_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 9.21 MB ]