Kolkata East-West Metro gets international safety nod

KOLKATA: The East-West Metro project on Saturday got the long-awaited safety clearance from French safety assessor ‘Certifier’.

The coast is now clear for the final approval for commercial operations from the Commissioner of Railway Safety. The French agency awards the safety certificate to all new Metro lines worldwide and was chosen as per international standards to send its ‘Independent Safety Assessment (ISA)’ clearance after thorough inspection of the signals.
Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC) engineers heaved a sigh of relief, when the ISA certificate reached Kolkata.The ISA safety audit by the French firm has been going on for some time and the final certificate was long due.
The commissioning of East-West Metro was due to happen in April-May, but was pushed back since the Italian firm handling the signalling system missed the March 31 deadline, and the ISA nod became pending because of this. Certifier had conducted its inspection in March and would have given its nod in three weeks, but had to delay the procedure as the signal tests couldn’t be done. The Italian firm has almost completed 800 trials now and the system is in place for CRS inspection.
“It’s a major milestone for us that Kolkata’s second Metro line was given the ISA clearance from the ‘third party’ assessor,” Anup K Kundu, director, rolling stock, KMRC, told TOI on Saturday.
The ISA consultant was chosen through a global bid floated earlier by KMRC. The French team assessed mainly the signalling and integration of automatic train control with the Operation Control Centre — East-West’s futuristic control room capable of running driverless trains. “We can now invite the CRS for inspection,” Kundu said.
Now that Certifier has given the ISA clearance, all safety the documents will be scrutinized by CRS at its Lucknow headquarters.