Searing summer, rising fuel price push more people to Chennai Metro

One of the important reasons could be the launch of Central Square — a remodeling and transformation of the area around the station to make to ease walking for pedestrians, officials said

CMRL officials say they have been seeing spike in the number of commuters on Fridays and Mondays. | Photo Credit: K. PICHUMANI

Summer, fuel price hike, and offers announced by Chennai Metro Rail have all together resulted in many people switching to this mass rapid transit recently.

In the last one week, the average ridership of Metro Rail has risen to nearly 1.6 lakh passengers a day from 1.37 lakh last month. 

According to officials of the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL), they have noticed a gradual increase ever since the beginning of the month and say several factors contribute to the rising ridership.  “There are hundreds who moved to Metro because of the scorching heat in the city and want to travel in air-conditioned train. Then, there are those who can’t travel by cabs or autorickshaws now because of the fuel price hike since the drivers are asking them to pay more,” said an official.

“Besides, we introduced promotional offers giving prizes for people who recharge for a certain amount and for those buying new cards. All of this has collectively helped us in getting more commuters,” he said.

Chennai Central has seen the maximum jump and from having nearly 10,000 passengers in March, 5,000 more passengers are now using it and it continues to the busiest station. One of the important reasons could be the launch of Central Square — a remodeling and transformation of the area around the station to make to ease walking for pedestrians, officials said. 

Thirumangalam, which has commuters coming in from Ambattur, Retteri, Padi and Mogappair, is the next station with maximum footfall and handles nearly 8,000 commuters daily. Following this, nearly 7,500 passengers use Chennai airport and High Court Metro Rail stations each respectively. “While we have multiple last mile connectivity options like buses and bike taxis in some stations, we don’t have a single uniform system like share autos or cars in all stations. If this was available, then thousands of commuters will benefit and more will opt to using our trains,” an official said. 

More often than not, at least 3,000 more commuters travel on Monday and Friday indicating that this was frequented largely by those using transport hubs. Officials said they had been seeing this pattern for a long time now.