In the last three months, 31.5 lakh people have used the Metro. The trains used to transport over 30 lakh passengers a month before the lockdown was implemented and commuter traffic plummeted, with a majority of the workforce still continuing to work from home.
But the number of travellers has been consistently increasing month after month. In December, 12.3 lakh people used the service, a 43% increase compared to 8.58 lakh in November, according to a press release.
On December 21, 47,214 passengers took the Metro, the highest number recorded in a day that month. But this was not even half of what the service witnessed early last year, with nearly 1.2 lakh people using the system each day.
“We do not expect to see the IT sector getting back to their workplaces any time soon. They were our most frequent commuters. But thankfully, we are seeing a good improvement in ridership each month. In about six months, we should be able to touch a lakh,” an official of the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) said.
In September and October, 3.6 lakh and 7.03 lakh passengers took the Metro respectively, the release said.
“A total of 83,813 passengers have utilised the recently launched QR code ticketing system from September 2020 to December 2020 and 18,49,944 passengers have used the Travel Card Ticketing System between September 2020 and December 2020,” the release said.
