Gurgaon, a suburb of New Delhi, is set to get driverless electric taxis to alleviate the traffic woes faced by thousands of people commuting to work every day.
The pilot project is expected to connect the Delhi border with the interior of Gurgaon, with 16 stations spread over a distance of 13 kilometers. The driverless electric taxis will hang from high railings and move at regular intervals.
The taxis will have an average speed of 60 kilometers per hour and can be used to transport six passengers per trip. The pilot project is expected to carry 30,000 passengers per day and will cost about Rs 8.5 billion ($126 million), which is less than what would be needed to build a metro network for the same distance.
The Indian government is currently reviewing bids from global companies for the project and is expected to make a final announcement next month. It hopes the project will ease traffic on National Highway-8, which connects Delhi with Gurgaon and the city's international airport.
However, it remains debatable whether the small-scale nature of the project is the right choice for Delhi and Gurgaon to address traffic woes, rather than large public transport systems. In 2011, a similar project was announced for the city of Amritsar, but was abandoned in 2014 after it was criticized by shopkeepers, small traders and heritage enthusiasts and deemed economically unviable.
Early reports suggest the service will be similar to Skytran, a NASA-backed startup that plans to transform public transportation by creating a network of vehicles that run on elevated rails. Skytran is currently working on its pilot program in Tel Aviv.
Personal rapid transit systems have also been tested in various locations around the world, but on a smaller scale. The oldest and most extensive is in Morgantown, West Virginia.
