Responding to intense public backlash over steep fare increases, Bengaluru’s Namma Metro has recalibrated its pricing structure, capping the maximum fare hike at 71.43% instead of the initially proposed 100%. The changes, announced by Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation on Thursday, February 13 will take effect from February 14.
What does this mean?
Despite the fare revision, the minimum and maximum fares remain unchanged at Rs 10 and Rs 90, respectively. However, commuters will see a reduction of 15% to 30% in their revised fares. Additionally, there are no changes to the existing fare slabs, which remain at 10 zones.
BMRCL Managing Director M Maheshwar Rao attributed the earlier surge in fares to abrupt jumps in fare zones. Under the previous structure, small differences in travel distance sometimes led to disproportionately high fare hikes. To correct this, BMRCL has now decided to charge commuters based on the number of stations traveled rather than the exact distance. Additionally, for fare calculations, the distance between two stations will be considered as 11 km, regardless of the actual distance.
While BMRCL has retained the fare zone structure, the move to calculate fares based on stations rather than precise distances is expected to make pricing more predictable and fairer. For example, the fare from MG Road to Baiyappanahalli (6.7 km) had doubled from Rs 20 to Rs 40 because the route fell in the fourth fare zone (6-8 km). Under the revised fare system, this journey will now cost Rs 30 as it falls within the third fare zone (4-6 km), aligning better with the number of stations traveled, Deccan Herald reported.
Of the 4,624 fare matrices spanning all possible fare combinations across Namma Metro’s 68 stations, BMRCL identified 600 instances where fares had increased abnormally by 70% to 100%.
Specifically:
> 15 fare matrices saw a 100% hike.
> 380 matrices had increases of 80-90%.
> The remaining affected fares increased by 70-80%.
The sudden hike in fares, which had doubled rates on certain routes, led to emergency meetings of the BMRCL board on Wednesday night and Thursday morning