Even as Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) is awaiting a Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) for the city to revise its blueprint for the ‘metro neo’ extension that was proposed on the 4-km MG Road-Menaka-Park Avenue Road-Hospital Road-MG Road loop line, officials of a firm that deals with ‘light trams’ are expected to meet their KMRL counterparts here on Tuesday (April 9), it is learnt.
They would discuss, among others, the feasibility of operating such ‘light trams’, an improvised version of the bus-rapid transport system, in this loop line and in other corridors where constructing a conventional metro would entail substantial land acquisition and massive capital investment. If realised, this would become a feeder service for the Kochi metro, helping improve patronage in the metro’s Aluva-MG Road-Thripunithura phase-1 corridor. It would also integrate the metro with Water Metro ferries that operate from the High Court terminal.
Such light trams operate in, among other places, Brisbane. Tuesday’s discussion will shed light on whether they can be operated in Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode, apart from Kochi. The firm is learnt to have reached out to KMRL in this regard. These trams that resemble metro coaches can be operated through roads, much like buses.
