It has just been over a month since the Chennai Metro Rail service was launched between Koyambedu and Alandur, and there is already talk of poor patronage of the service during weekdays.
Experts cite two reasons for this — high fare and lack of connectivity between stations and neighbouring areas.
K.P. Subramaniam, former professor of Anna University, said, “the patronage is low because it is difficult to reach the stations from the interior areas; if feeder services like mini- buses or share autos were available, ridership would certainly increase. Ideally, the feeder services should have started operating by now.”
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“Imagine people taking a two-wheeler or a four-wheeler to the stations, paying for parking and then for the ticket; for those who had to do it on a daily basis, this would prove expensive,” he added.
N.S. Srinivasan, former director of National Transport Planning and Research Centre, said that residents would be happy if direct buses were introduced as they are now forced to take a circuitous route to reach the stations.
“They can at least have a skeletal feeder service till the entire network is commissioned. The delay in the work is the main reason for most problems,” he added.
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Officials of Chennai Metro Rail Ltd. (CMRL) said they did a study and even finalised the feeder routes. The Vadapalani station has the maximum, with six routes, followed by CMBT with five routes.
Officials, however, said they would start the services only after assessing the traffic demand on this stretch. Also, they said they wrote to the Metropolitan Transport Corporation sometime ago with regard to the feeder services. But nothing had come out of it.