Indian Railways is rapidly transforming the rail ecosystem of India, by launching several new initiatives. Of these, the introduction of Vande Bharat Express trains has been the most successful, with these semi-high speed trains receiving a lot of fanfare from passengers as well as enthusiasts. So far, 23 Vande Bharat Express trains have been operationalized in 24 states and union territories. While one of the reasons why the Vande Bharat trains have received such a good response is that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated every single Vande Bharat train in India.
On February 15, 2019 Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the first Vande Bharat Express between New Delhi and Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh which was manufactured indigenously at Integral Coach Factory, Chennai. But more than that, it has to do with the speed and facilities offered by these trains to the passengers. With an operational speed of 160 kmph, Vande Bharat is the fastest train of the Indian Railways.
Among these 23 Vande Bharat Express trains, Kasaragod to Thiruvananthapuram train is the best performing Vande Bharat Express with an average occupancy of 183 percent. As per PTI report, Vande Bharat Express between Trivandrum and Kasargod in Kerala is the second best performing train with an average occupancy of 176 per cent, followed by Gandhinagar-Mumbai Central Vande Bharat Express with an average occupancy of 134 per cent.
The trains with top occupancy include the Mumbai Central-Gandhinagar Vande Bharat Express (129 per cent), Varanasi-New Delhi Vande Bharat Express (128 per cent), New Delhi-Varanasi Vande Bharat Express (124 per cent), Dehradun-Amritsar Vande Bharat Express (105 per cent), Mumbai-Sholapur Vande Bharat Express (111 per cent), Sholapur-Mumbai Vande Bharat Express (104 per cent).
In the eastern zone, the Howrah-Jalpaiguri Vande Bharat Express has an average occupancy of 108 per cent and has registered an occupancy of 103 per cent in the return journey. The Patna-Ranchi Vande Bharat Express has an occupancy of 125 per cent, while it has an occupancy of 127 per cent in the return journey. The least performing and popular trains are Ajmer to Delhi Cantonment Vande Bharat Express (60 per cent) and Delhi Cantonment to Ajmer train (83 per cent).
So far the train has made 2,140 trips, and 25,20,370 pure passengers have boarded Vande Bharat Express from 1st April, 2022 to 21st June, 2023. Till July 2022, a tender has been awarded to manufacture 102 Vande Bharat trains. Another tender has been issued for 200 Vande Bharat trains.
On 27 June, PM Modi inaugurated 5 Vande Bharat Express trains simultaneously from Rani Kamalapati station of Bhopal. Apart from this, there are plans to introduce more Vande Bharat Express trains in the coming months.