Mumbai: The upcoming Mumbai Metro lines may be designed to ease commuter crush, but for now it is having the opposite effect, with excavations and the resulting blocked roads in various parts of the city seeing more people switch from road to rail. According to Railways statistics, both Western Railway and Central Railway local lines have registered a rise in passenger numbers.
WR officials say they have recorded an increase of 0.41 % in July, as compared to the same period last year (July 2016: 10.67 crore, July 2017 11.07 crore), and earnings for the same period increased by ₹2.63 crore. CR has seen July passenger numbers rise by 5.18% over last year.
A WR official said, “We have recorded increasing number of passengers in the month of July and we think this is due to the Metro work which is causing traffic, and so many have shifted to train rather than wasting hours travelling by road. Usually, this month doesn’t show increased number of passengers.”
E-buying rises
WR numbers also show more passengers buying tickets through Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVM) and the WR’s mobile app. While the bulk of purchases is still from traditional ticket counters, the numbers have declined, from 82.46% of all tickets last July to 79.97% this July. ATVM purchases are up from 17.44% in July 2016 to 19.61% this July.
Mobile ticketing is still tiny, but growing, with the numbers up from 0.10% last year to 0.42% this year. Aarti Singh Parihar, Senior Divisional Commercial Manager, WR, ascribed the increase to promotional activities: “We appointed 60 facilitators in last one year to help the passengers, taking the total to 126, and did some activities like offering free items from catering stalls on recharge of smart cards and setting up of smart card tables at stations.”
CR has recorded increased sales from its ticket windows, Jan Sadharan Ticket Booking Seva (JTBS) and mobile ticketing, but a decline in buying from ATVMs. Conventional ticketing was 50.10 % last July and is up to 54.42% this July. For the same period, JTBS ticketing increased from 15.53 % to 17.45% and mobile ticketing from 0.50% to 1.35%. ATVM ticketing dropped from 12.63 % to 10.07 %.