Bombardier Transportation’s visionary early investment in India has given it a distinct advantage as the country responds to economic growth with improvements in its transport infrastructure.
The name Bombardier is synonymous with world class transportation systems, with manufacturing, engineering and services facilities in 23 countries and a global network of service and support operations. Bombardier Transportation, a global leader in rail technology, offers one of the broadest portfolios in the rail industry and delivers innovative products and services that set new standards in sustainable mobility. Headquartered in Berlin, Germany, Bombardier Transportation, a subsidiary of its Canadian parent Bombardier Inc, has an installed base of over 100,000 vehicles worldwide.
Bombardier Transportation India has been serving India’s rail transport network for over 35 years. Anticipating the country’s economic growth and the consequent need to improve its transportation infrastructure, Bombardier built its first factory there in 1997 in Vadodara, Gujarat, for the production of propulsion systems and components. A software engineering pool for the development and delivery of rail control solutions soon followed, also in Vadodara.
Expansion continued and in 2003 Bombardier Transportation India opened a railway vehicle engineering centre at Infotech, in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. These sites have since delivered propulsion systems for India Railways’ WAP5 and WAG9 electric locomotives and two traffic management systems for Mumbai’s Western and Central Railways—one of the world’s busiest rail operations with over 2,400 train services daily.
Whether anyone at Bombardier could have foreseen the rate of growth and change in India’s rail transportation system is hard to guess, but when it took off, Bombardier was already there to take advantage of it.
Indian Railways has traditionally been a highly vertically integrated company, and largely decentralised. Before the arrival of Bombardier, it produced almost everything itself, from locomotives to bogies, leaving the commercial sector to fight over the scraps. Indian Railways still produces much of its own infrastructure, but Bombardier now supports it with services, spares and replacement parts as well as supplying signalling and electro-mechanical equipment that it does not make itself. As attitudes change, and technology moves on, more opportunities are likely to arise.
The major growth opportunity came in 2007, however, with the award of a contract from the Delhi Metro Corporation to supply MOVIA metro cars. As a result of that order, Bombardier decided in July 2007 to build a brand new facility in Savli, Gujarat.
The state-of-the-art facility was built in a record 18 months, opening in November 2008, and has boosted the local economy by creating hundreds of new direct jobs and thousands through the local supplier network. The first metro car emerged from the plant in June 2009. At €33 million, Savli represents Bombardier’s largest investment anywhere in Asia and gives the company the honour of becoming the first foreign multinational to set up a wholly-owned railway manufacturing plant in India for the production and final assembly of bogies and car bodies.
Savli now has a railway vehicle manufacturing site, a propulsion systems manufacturing facility and a software development centre for signalling and traction applications in India, and for other Bombardier Transportation projects around the world.
The Delhi Metro is now in its Phase II expansion, and more cars have been ordered, bringing the total ordered up to 538 units. The Phase II expansion extends the existing network to a total of 165 kilometres, covering all major destinations in the East-West and North-South corridors of the city, which is occupied by approximately 16 million people. When all the cars are in service, the Delhi Metro is expected to carry 2.5 million passengers every day, reducing their journey time and alleviating the heavy traffic congestion and pollution prevalent in the city.
The success of the Delhi Metro, even before its expansion, is making other cities look at improving their own infrastructure with a modern rail system. Cities like Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad are now interested in installing a similar system. With populations between four and twenty million people they need to update their infrastructure to cope with the sheer weight of numbers, and the obvious solution is an underground or elevated metro rail system.
The MOVIA metro car is already popular with operators around the world, with some 4,000 or so in operation in cities like New York, Montreal, Toronto, Paris, London, Berlin, Bucharest, Stockholm, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and many others. The vehicles integrate the world’s most advanced technologies in metro vehicle manufacturing, such as stainless steel car bodies and the reliable MITRAC propulsion and control system. They are developed from a standardized platform, ensuring a high degree of reliability, safety and maintainability, while providing low life-cycle cost.
On 14 July 2011, shortly before this article went to press, Bombardier Transportation announced the appointment of Benoit Cattin Martel as president and managing director, to succeed Rajeev Jyoti, who has now left the company. Cattin Martel has held a number of senior management roles within Bombardier and has an in-depth knowledge of the Asian market.
“I am honoured to represent Bombardier in India, a country to which we have a strategic long-term commitment and where we are willing to expand further,” he said on his appointment. “For more than three decades, this company has invested in India. Those investments have come in the form of manufacturing facilities, state-of-the-art technologies and, most importantly, the people of India. In that time, we have established a significant presence in the market, and today we have several manufacturing sites that offer world class rail products and solutions made in India.”
As the Indian economy continues to open up and grow, companies with foresight at the forefront of technology will enjoy unprecedented opportunities. As one of the world’s leading train manufacturers, Bombardier is well positioned to take advantage of the current phase of commuter rail expansion.
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