Mumbai: Mumbai Metro is set to get first of its indigenously-made driverless trains from Bharat Earth Movers Ltd Bengaluru on January 27, informed Urban Development Minister Eknath Shinde.

The Maharashtra state Minister said that the first of automatic Metro trains will arrive at the Charkop Metro Carshed in Mumbai and after operational tests, will be deployed on the two new Metro routes scheduled to start from May.

"This will be a driverless Metro train, running automatically. But, in order not to panic or make passengers feel unsafe, for around six months initially, they will be operated by a motorman. The trains will have a max speed limit of 80kmph," said Shinde.

The new driverless trains will be run on Metro 2A Dahisar to DN Nagar and Metro 7 Dahisar to Andheri East, a full seven years after the country's commercial capital got its first 11-km long Metro on the Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar sector.

Shinde said that under the guidance of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, the construction of these Metro lines and stations are accelerated, and being executed by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is in the final stages.

FEATURES OF THE NEW COACH

The coaches of train are built to conserve energy and switch to alternative non-conventional energy in case of a power failure. All train coaches have multiple amenities such as ACs, automatic doors, passenger announcement system, fire-fighting equipment, CCTVs and an emergency help button to name a few. It also has Train Control and Management System for speed control and safety and optical fibre in each coach for Internet.

(With inputs from IANS)