Nearly a year since stopping share cars as a last-mile connectivity option for commuters, Metro Rail still has not resumed it.
On Thursday, the number of people travelling on the Metro network was nearly 80,000.
Despite the gradual increase in ridership, last-mile connectivity services, like share cars and share autorickshaws, are unavailable to commuters. But now, they are mulling another option to have autorickshaws in some stations, which commuters can take to their destination.
According to officials of Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL), they are in talks with companies such as Ola and Uber to provide space in the parking area for their autorickshaws.
“In five stations, including the Airport, Central, Alandur and Koyambedu, we will give them space in the parking lot and whoever wants can use the service. We are in talks with them to finalise this soon,” an official said.
But this is not sufficient and a full-fledged last mile connectivity is needed if the passenger traffic touches pre-pandemic levels.
“We were be able to get the traffic to touch 1.25 lakh a day primarily because there was a dedicated last-mile connectivity option plying from most stations. It is certainly possible to manage expenditure incurred by this when the ridership grows within a few months,” another official said.
T. Elangovan, traffic and transportation planner, said first- and last-mile connectivity would attract people to switch to public transport.
“They should have a separate service offering transport for people from select points for both pick up and drop to and from the stations. Aside from this, mini-buses should stop at all stations. Such affordable options are essential as people cannot pay for an autorickshaw each time they have to go to a station,” he added.
