Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR) continues to be in the second position in terms of passenger patronage among all other metro projects in the country, placed just behind Delhi Metro. HMR on Saturday carried about 1.34 lakh passengers across the three corridors — Red Line (L.B. Nagar to Miyapur) Green Line (JBS to MGBS) and Blue Line (Nagole to Raidurg).
Managing Director N.V.S. Reddy informed that Delhi Metro, which is 18 years old, has been carrying about 14.75 lakh passengers daily but it moves across a massive 389 km with 285 stations as against the 69 km and 57 stations of HMR, which was launched in November 2017.
Third position is occupied by nine-year-old Bengaluru Metro that carries 68,716 passengers across 42 km, covering 40 stations followed by Mumbai Metro carrying 32,322 passengers on 11 km and 12 stations daily for the past six years. The Chennai Metro has been carrying 29,141 passengers for 45 km across 32 stations. It is five years old, he said.
10-city report
Indian Metro Operators group keeps a tab on the daily passenger travel in 10 cities and as per the data collected, the following is the patronage — Kochi (1,106 passengers and 26 km), Nagpur (4,051 passengers and 25 km), Lucknow (2,020 passengers and 23 km), Jaipur (20,160 passengers and 12 km) and Mumbai Mono Rail (715 passengers and 20 km).
Mr. Reddy has revealed that the ridership of Corridor 1 between L.B. Nagar and Miyapur continues to get good footfalls with about 84,404 passengers using the facility daily or 63% of the ridership.
Corridor Three between Nagole to Raidurg is second with 45,551 or 34% of the ridership travelling daily even without the usual rush of IT/ITES employees moving whereas Corridor Two between Jubilee Bus Station (Secunderabad) and Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station (Imlibun) is witnessing less patronage at 4,019 passengers or just 3% of the total ridership.
Highest ridership are terminal stations of L.B. Nagar and Miyapur. Interchange station for Red Line and Blue Line at Ameerpet too is witnessing maximum footfall. Metro stations of KPHB, JNTU, Diluskhnagar, Uppal and Parade Grounds are the other popular halts for passengers.
Frequency of trains has been 3-4 minutes for Red and Blue Lines while it has been 8-10 minutes of frequency for the Green Line with 55 three-set trains being run non-stop from 7 a.m. to 9.30 p.m. for more than 800 trips a day, he added.
