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GOA
OPEN SPACE
AN INTEGRATED MULTIMODAL
TRANSPORT HUB COULD BE
DEVELOPED AT THE PERNEM
RAILWAY STATION WHERE
PASSENGERS CAN SWITCH
FROM PLANE TO TRAIN OR BUS
AND VICE VERSA, FROM TRAIN
TO BUS AND VICE VERSA, ALL
UNDER ONE ROOF IN ABSOLUTE
COMFORT. THE COMPLEX WOULD
ALSO PROVIDE FOR BOOKING OF
TICKETS, SANITARY UTILITIES,
RELAXATION WHILE WAITING,
FOOD AND REFRESHMENTS,
BOOKING OF HOTELS AND
SHOPPING.
provide for booking of tickets, sanitary utilities, relaxation while waiting, food and refreshments, booking
of hotels and shopping. It is needless
to say that the hub is not just a utility;
it is a business proposition that will
provide employment and income to
locals and revenue to the Goa government. That is what it has to be eventually: a hub for growth of the entire
region. Integrated hubs like this can
provide tremendous boost to local
produce as they attract large congregations of customers; it becomes
a virtuous cycle: activity attracts
crowds, and crowds attract activity,
and the growth effect trickles down
over a wide region. And the right type
of growth: growth without the ill effects of crass urbanisation, rapacious
industrialisation and unjust concentration of wealth.
Even looking from the narrow point
of view of the viability of the airport,
no major airport can be viable if it cannot derive more than half of its income
from non-aeronautical activities; I
suppose the ratio for a viable business
model is something like 20:80 between aeronautical and non-aeronautical activities. Or else the non-travelling public has to bear the tax burden;
or the airport has to simply price itself
out of the competition. Crucial to the
viability of the integrated transport
hub is the connectivity. And that is
the location advantage of Mopa: the
KR Station, the NH 66 and the airport
will be in close proximity, providing
connectivity within the region as well
as with the rest of the world. But this
advantage will work for the viability
of the hub and the airport if and only
if the KR line and the NH are used optimally. Passengers landing at Mopa
need to be shuttled to their destinations in comfort and in the shortest
possible time. One excellent option
is to use the major KR stations as the
hubs for disembarkation of air travellers and run fast trains connecting
these stations. This is again a superb
idea that has been tried out by KLIA.
A high speed non-stop train KLIA Express connects the airport to another
marvelous transport hub KL Sentral
in the heart of Kuala Lumpur - in just
28 minutes; another train KLIA Transit makes two stops in between; what
is the most important, the trains start
from within the Main Terminal of the
airport. Other railway lines - metro,
suburban, intercity and transnational
(going to Bangkok and Singapore) - either originate at or pass through KL
Sentral; as a result the air passengers
have unsurpassed connectivity with
comfort, speed and economy.
Similar trains could start from the
Pernem Integrated Transport Hub or
the trains passing through Pernem
KR Station could be utilised for this
purpose, depending on the traffic
volumes and track availability. They
would have to then connect to the