Metro’s patronage goes up by 64 percent since Jan this year

In September, the monthly patronage touched 31.89 lakh as against 19.37 lakh in January. The daily patronage crossed more than one lakh for 21 days in the last month, with the maximum of 1.19 lakh on September 13. In August, the daily patronage crossed more than one lakh for 19 days, with the maximum of 1.3 lakh on August 30.

In total, 2.23 crore passengers have travelled in Metro trains in 2019. “CMRL has undertaken several initiatives for providing last-mile connectivity. Share autos and share taxis, metro cab services are operated from Metro rail stations in addition to small buses run by MTC. Tempo traveller feeder services to IT corridors on OMR have also been provided,” a statement from CMRL said.

In January, the Metro patronage stood at 19.37 lakh. After the opening of the last leg of the Metro Phase-I, the patronage went up by 21 per cent to 23.62 lakh. The patronage grew marginally in the months of April, May and June. From 24.95 lakh in June, it touched a record 28.17 lakh in July.

The 45-km network is operated in six stretches with the first one being Koyambedu to Alandur (June 2015), Little Mount to Chennai airport (September 2016), Alandur to St. Thomas Mount (October 2016), Koyambedu to Nehru Park (May 2017), Nehru Park to Chennai Central (May 2018) and Little Mount to AG-DMS (May 2018). The last section to be commissioned was AG-DMS to Washermenpet via Central in February this year.

As the new section was commissioned, the patronage increased. An official said that 26 lakh people travelled in the Metro between June and December 2015 while 36 lakh travelled next year. In 2017, 73 lakh people travelled. The passengers’ patronage doubled in 2018 to 1.43 crore. With the commissioning of the entire phase one this year, the ridership touched a new high of 2.23 crore from January 1 to September 30.