Delhi Metro a big hit among youth

70 per cent of commuters fall in the age group of 19-30 years, reveals survey

Officials claim that a survey conducted by the DMRC has found that commuters are largely satisfied with the quality of service and have rated Delhi Metro “very good”. FILE PHOTO: MONICA TIWARI

Delhi Metro is fast becoming the lifeline of public transport in the Capital. However, it seems the youth of the city prefer it more than the elderly do.

A survey conducted by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has revealed that Metro is more popular among the youth with 70 per cent of its commuters falling in the age group of 19-30 years. With 21 per cent, the second biggest group was those belonging to the age group of 31-50 years.

The DMRC observed the second edition of the Customer Satisfaction Week from May 15 to 21 and covered 1,09,188 respondents in its Customer Satisfaction Survey conducted at the top 22 Metro stations having the highest ridership/footfalls.

Apart from taking the opinion of the commuters on a range of issues, the survey gave an insight into the overall profile of daily commuters.

“Among the respondents, 73 per cent were males while the rest were females. Office-going professionals (service sector) and students formed a bulk of the ridership as they comprised 60 and 28 per cent of the total respondents,” a Delhi Metro spokesperson said. Metro officials said the survey has been conducted as per EN 13816, a European survey system used widely to assess the performance of the public transportation systems in Europe.

Surveys were conducted on crucial aspects of Metro operations like availability, accessibility, information, quality of service, customer care, comfort, security and safety. Under these heads, the survey covered many subheads focused on all the minute aspects of Metro operations.

Some of the major subheads were – information at Metro stations, travelling in Metro train, facility of smart cards and its features, security at Metro stations, and availability of drinking water. The commuters were asked to rate the services on the scale – excellent, very good, good, satisfactory, and need improvement. The Metro officials claimed the findings of the survey revealed that the commuters are largely satisfied with the quality of service and have rated Delhi Metro “very good”. “Barring a few, on almost all the parameters, the responses have ranged between excellent (10 points) and good (six points),” a Metro spokesperson said.

However, the commuters expressed concern over issues like tackling of beggars and encroachments.