Per capita income of India is many times lesser than the per capita income of other countries where HSTs are successfully operating. Since the paying power of avg Indian is much lower, it is necessary to keep fares of HST travel as low as possible. Very important factors for the financial viability of the HSTs from Indian perspective are:
(1) Maximisation of Non-fare revenue through development of commercial properties at Rly stations, development of commercial/ Residential/ industrial/ business/ educational hubs enroute the HST track, advertisement, attracting high-value lightweight freight like jewellery etc, which should be equal to the fare generated by selling tickets
(2) Maximisation...
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of the number of passengers and fare-revenue is necessary which can be done by proper packaging of the trainsets like:
** bring down the cost per seat by maximizing the number of seats per coach through innovative coach layouts & designs like double-decker coaches.
** To attract passengers from other modes of transport, facilities like online entertainment, comfortable seats, etc should be provided.
** HSTs should cater to attract Middle Classpax in significant numbers, and should be the preferred mode of travel for Upper-Middle Class & Upper Class passengers. Proper mix of such economy seats, standard class seat(similar to normal ACC), business class (similar to Exe.CC) is required. Also the possibility of luxury class coaches with very high fare in very limited numbers need to be explored to attract the Very Rich class.
** maximize the number of passengers by attracting onward journey passengers. This can be done by giving connectivity of dedicated trains on conventional network & of dedicated luxury buses for specific destinations to the paxs of HST trains. For ex. Ahmedabad to Mumbai by HST and connecting luxury bus from Mumbai Rly stn to Pune/Mahabaleshwar/Nashik-Trymbakeshwar etc Delhi to Varanasi by HST and onward Semi High Speed BG train to Gaya-Dhanbad-Asansol-Durgapur-Howrah/Patna/Ranchi etc

** After Mum-Ahm HST route is commissioned (in phases, say by 2024-28) and operationalized, the signalling, operation & maintenance practices of HSTs shall gradually percolate to rest of IR network.
** Still, the integration of HST network is not be possible with existing rail network due to adoption of standard gauge employed for HSR. If BG is adopted for HSR, a sizable traffic can be attracted on HST route by running chaircar/ overnight sleeper trains to other destinations on the IR conventional network. Such HSTs trainsets (chaircar as well as sleeper versions) shall operate at 320kmph on HST, 160/200 kmph on SHS routes (planned), & 130kmph on remaining IR network. Here the IR network maintenance standards need to be raised to meethe...
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t requirements of HST.
** Development of trainsets for BG may take an additional year, which may at the most delay the project by 1 year or so. Actually that is also not a probletrack tracj construction itself is getting delayed due to delays in land acquisition.

If BG had been adopted for HST then, by 2050, the scenario of train operation in India could be:
** Almost all the freight trains (about 90%) are running on the Dedicated Freight Corridors at 100/120kmph, rest running on some stretches of conventional IR network at 90/100kmph.
** HS train sets running at 320+ kmph on dedicated HST routes
** HS trainsets running at...
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320+kmph on dedicated HST routes and 160/200 kmph on routes on conventional IR network upgraded to SHS standard
** SemiHS trainsets & Push-Pull Loco trains operating at 160/200kmph on conventional IR network upgraded to SHS standard and at 130+kmph on remaining conventional network.

** Conventional loco trains/ trainsets operating on conventional IR network at 130+kmph