Chennai metro sees a spike in patronage

CHENNAI: More people seem to be taking the metro rail for their daily commute.
The monthly patronage has increased by more than 10 lakh in the last eight months. In August, the daily patronage crossed more than one lakh for 19 days with the maximum on August 30 at 1.3 lakh. In August, around 29.65 lakh passengers travelled by metro rail, around 10.28 lakh more than in January 2019. In total, 1.91 crore passengers travelled in metro trains since the beginning of 2019. Metro rail officials said the introduction of feeder services for last mile connectivity has helped increase the patronage.
Going by the monthly numbers, the patronage shot up by more than four lakh in February 2019, at 23.62 lakhs, compared to January 2019 after the last leg of the 45km phase-between Washermenpet and AGDMS was opened. Between March and June, another one lakh new passengers took the metro rail. The monthly patronage which was at 23.88 lakh in March, increased to 24.95 lakh in June. On April 26, metro services crossed one lakh daily patronage.
Officials have said that suburban train services are seeing a drop in patronage following the spike in metro train ridership. They said “there was a drop of 95 lakh in the patronage of suburban train services between April and August compared to the same period in 2018.” With frequent technical snags disrupting services notwithstanding, an additional three lakh passengers took the metro between June and July. By July-end, the patronage was at 28.17 lakh as daily average ridership crossed one lakh.
Officials, on the steady rise of patronage in August, said the daily ridership crossed more than one lakh during the weekdays while it hit 90,000 during weekends.