There has never been a bullet train project that was not completed: JTTRI’s Masafumi Shukuri

The Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail corridor may be delayed, but all bullet train projects in the past have been completed and “welcomed with open arms”, said MASAFUMI SHUKURI, chairman of the Japan Transport and Tourism Research Institute (JTTRI) and International High-Speed Rail Association (IHRA) in an interview with The Indian Express . Shukuri also discussed why the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project could be a success, the special nature of high-speed rail systems, and how the Japanese Shinkansen system has managed to achieve near-perfect safety and punctuality over more than six decades. Edited excerpts:

The cost of high-speed rail systems can be very high. Can they come down significantly so that these systems become more viable?

High-speed rail, when you compare its cost w