[2][3] A separate study by the Ministry of Megapolis and Western Development also concluded that a light rail system to be much more feasible than a monorail, and recommended light rail, an electrified railway system and an inland water transport (a brand new boat/ferry service that utilises Colombo’s historic canal network) under the Western Region Megapolis project.
The Colombo Monorail was replaced by a Light Rail Transport (LRT) system for multiple reasons:[5] Light rail systems are in widespread use across the globe and is a much more accepted technology, while Monorail is a relatively new technology and are primarily used for internal circulation such as theme parks, between airport terminal and shopping malls.
Most of the literature states that the cost component of both LRT and monorail remains the same when considering an alignment on elevated section with 50 million USD/km.
The RTS traces for the Megapolis has major portion as elevated since it is proposed within the CBD and heavily urbanized areas.
He further reason out that the switching issues are the reasons monorails operate as single lines and that it is very complex to plan for network of monorails.further it creates an operational concern as it is essential a segments of concrete beams that are mechanically moved into place, which takes 15–25 seconds in contrasts to 0.6 second switch time for conventional rail which will escalate the cost of construction while such complex switching process is not needed in a LRT System.
Monorail promoters habitually tend to portray monorail systems as light, airy, slender, unobtrusive structures sailing gracefully over fields and streets typically only photos of renditions of single beam guideways are presented.
To mitigate the practical issue, walkways between the monorail beams have been erected so that people can walk out in such solution which results in them losing the only advantage of day light penetration which is considerably blocked.
The Las Vegas project demonstrates, a bona fide, heavy-duty, real world monorail consists of a lot more heavy, physical, elevated infrastructure than just a slender beamway.