The medium-haul option for journeys of about 150 – 550 km, is expected to fill the service gap between existing road-rail modes. From the O-D surveys, the average service speed of existing train is found to be as low as 50 km/h. For a long distance such as 900 km, an outdated SRT train requires 17 hours to cover it (see Fig. 8). In contrast, an express train (double track) running at 120 km/h will be able to cover the distance in 8 hours and 30 minutes, thereby cutting current travel time by 8 hours and 30 minutes. Even greater travel time reductions will be possible where an HSR is employed. Competitiveness of HSR advantage other modes for medium distance journeys in the range of 150 - 550 km as shown in Fig. 9.