We Are Tomodachi Spring 2018

26/38

26A vast country in the throes of rapid economic growth, India’s GDP shot up by over 6% during 2017. This is in addition to a population increase of over 13% during the last 10 years. Unsurprisingly, India is facing unprecedented demographic challenges as a result of this success. “India needs mobility. Our average rail speed does not meet the growing expectations of the public. Unless we build a system that allows much faster mobility for our people, we’ll struggle to move forward,” explains Achal Khare, managing director of National High Speed Rail Corporation Ltd. “So for me, I knew we needed a high-speed rail. The question was ‘which one?’” After numerous in-depth feasibility studies, India’s Ministry of Railways settled on a close working relationship with Japan International Consultants for Transportation Co., Ltd. (JIC). “The Japanese system was chosen for many reasons,” explains Khare. “The Shinkansen (Japan's high-speed rail system) has maintained an unmatched safety record since its establishment in 1964, such as zero fatalities; it really has an edge over other high speed rail networks.”“Currently, the roughly 500 km (310 mi) route from Mumbai to Ahmedabad can take over eight hours to complete. This will be reduced to just two hours,” says Towards the Future, Faster: Co-Creating a New High-Speed Rail in IndiaPrime Ministers Shinzo Abe and Narendra Modi take a tour of Kawasaki Heavy Industries’ Hyogo Shinkansen train plant in Kobe, Japan on November 12, 2016.