The Yellow Line recorded the highest ridership at nearly 21,900 passengers followed by the Blue Line (9,600) and Pink Line (1,800)
With operations resuming on the Blue and Pink Lines from September 9, the Delhi Metro's total ridership reached nearly 33,300 passengers in the morning hours, between 7 am to 11 am, as against the 7,500 on September 7, the first day after the services were resumed, DMRC said in a statement.
The Yellow Line, which resumed operation on the first day, recorded the highest ridership at nearly 21,900 passengers, followed by the Blue Line (9,600) and Pink Line (1,800).
DMRC, however, clarified that the actual utilisation of a metro system is reflected from the number of journeys performed by a passenger in completing his/her journey by using one or more lines (line utilisation) and not by ridership alone.
"To reflect the true utilisation of the Delhi Metro’s network by passengers, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) will revert to line utilisation (passenger journeys) figures after September 12," Anuj Dayal, executive director, corporate communications, DMRC, said.
Red, Green, and Violet Lines will also resume services from September 10 with the same schedule of four hours of passenger service each in the morning and evening under Stage-I plan of resumption of Metro services.
DMRC will be running 35 trains on the Red Line (Rithala-Shaheed Sthal New Bus Adda), performing around 413 train trips during morning and evening hours from September 10, officials said.
Similarly, 40 trains with approximately 344 trips will be put into service on the Violet Line (Kashmere Gate-Raja Nahar Singh). On the Green Line (Kirtinagar/Inderlok- Brig. Hoshiar Singh), 20 trains with 268 train trips will be put into service.
“The trips will be subsequently increased as the operational timing of services get extended on September 11 and September 12 with the opening of other lines in a graded manner,” Dayal said.
On September 11, the remaining lines will also be reopened under stage-2. These would include the Magenta Line from Janakpuri West to Botanical Garden and Grey Line from Dwarka to Najafgarh.
Under stage 3, the Airport Express Line from New Delhi to Dwarka Sec-21 is expected to be reopened on September 12, making
The entire Metro network will be made operational for passenger services throughout the day from September 12, with all social distancing norms/guidelines to be followed by the passengers during the travel due to ongoing pandemic.
The home ministry had issued guidelines allowing metro services in the country to resume operations in a graded manner, following which DMRC had said it would be done in three stages from September 7-12.
DMRC had appealed to passengers to travel light and "talk less inside trains to prevent the possibility of short-range aerosol transmission".
Due to the pandemic and strict social distancing norms, the carrying capacity of a train has been drastically reduced to around 20 percent of the pre-lockdown period.
Passengers had been advised to avoid unnecessary travel as far as possible.
Besides Delhi, Metro networks also restarted operations on September 7 in a graded manner in Lucknow, Kochi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad, but remained closed in Mumbai, Nagpur, Kolkata and Jaipur.
The Kolkata Metro, the country's first rapid transit system, is yet to resume service.
The Maharashtra government had on September 1 decided against the immediate resumption of Metro and local train services.
No decision has been taken on restarting metro services in Jaipur.