India’s First Pod Taxi Service to Connect Noida Airport & Film City
Written by Sanjay Kumar
The Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) has announced plans to launch India’s first pod taxi service, which will connect the proposed Film City to the upcoming Noida International Airport. Recently, the authority approved the bid document and revised the detailed project report (DPR) for this ambitious project, which is expected to start soon.
The pod taxi service will offer personalized rapid transit (PRT) to passengers using small, automated, electric, and driverless cars that can carry up to six people at once. These cars will operate on a network of elevated rails called dedicated guideways, which will transport passengers on demand to their destinations.
This service will cover a 14.6 km route passing through various sectors such as Handicraft Park, Apparel Park, MSME Park in Sector 29, industrial units in Sector 32, and Toy Park in Sector 33 before ending at Film City in Sector 21. The route will consist of 12 stations, and the entire journey will take 20 minutes, with pod taxis traveling at a maximum speed of 40 km/hour.
In phases, a total of 690 pods will be introduced on the stretch, with the first phase consisting of 101 pods, each having a seating capacity of six persons. The project is estimated to cost around INR 800 crore, and the concession period will be 35 years, including two years required for construction.
YEIDA’s revised DPR for the project, which was prepared in consultation with the Indian Port Rail and Ropeway Corporation Limited (IPRRC), states that the proposed PRT project will be the longest in the world, at 14.6 km. The report also compared the project with five existing pod taxi projects in the world that have transported over 1 billion passengers per km, with only one safety incident. Additionally, the report revealed that the longest and oldest PRT service in Morgantown, USA, is 13.2 km long, and the second-longest PRT system is at Tianfu Airport, Chengdu, China, which is 9.7 km long and began operations in 2022.
Arun Vir Singh, the CEO of YEIDA, mentioned that the bid document (concession agreement and RFP) would be prepared soon so that it could be presented before the bid-evaluation committee. The authority plans to invite tenders for the project by June, and if everything goes according to plan, the pod taxi service is expected to become operational soon, connecting the airport to the Film City in Noida. The project will be executed in a public-private partnership mode.
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