In a testament to the growing popularity of public transport in Bengaluru, Namma Metro saw a record ridership of almost 1 lakh people more than its average ridership on Monday.
According to the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited a total of 4,25,198 people used the metro on Monday. While the Purple Line recorded a ridership of 2,28,316, the Green Line recorded usage of 1,96,882 passengers.
While the Green Line between Nagasandra-Yelachenahalli spans 24.22 km, the Purple Line between Byappanahalli-Mysuru Road runs for 18.08 km.
The metro saw record ridership on August 10 – the purple line had seen 2,30,993 passengers and the Green Line got a footfall of 1,92,105 – but the footfall recorded on August 13 was higher.
Sanjeev Dhyamanvar, a public transport activist, attributes the spike in ridership to the Lalbagh flower show, which is being held since August 4.
“They should tell us the numbers recorded just before and after flower show started. There does not seem to be any other reason why the numbers have increased. The designed capacity is to transport to 8 lakh passengers in a day with six-coach trains with a three-minute headway,” he said.
He added, “A lot of investment has happened, but due to the lax approach of the BMRCL, it is not being utilised properly. They are delaying the acquisition of additional coaches, and connections to bus stops and railway stations are not being done to make it easy to use the metro.”
The Bengaluru metro train service was inaugurated seven years ago, and only the Purple Line has six-car trains as of now -- all the other trains run with three coaches. The second six-coach train was promised to run from August after the first six-coach train was introduced in June-end.
But the arrival has been postponed with BMRCL MD Ajay Seth stating that the second six-car train will only arrive mid-September.
With the addition of three coaches to each of the city's 50 metro trains, the number of passengers to ride the metro each day is expected to double to about 8 lakh.
Recently there have been meda reports on how metro commuters are finding it difficult to negotiate the increasing congestion in the compartments.
In one year (between June 18, 2017-June 16, 2018), the BMRCL has recorded 12,29,49,982 (12 crore) individual journeys with an average daily ridership of 3,36,849, resulting in a total revenue of Rs 327.93 crore.
The full-fledged metro service of Namma Metro Phase-I, which was opened to the public in June 2017 after several deadlines were missed, has not eased the traffic congestion on the city's arterial roads as it covers a mere 43 km of the 800 km city with ever-expanding subur
The metro is set to expand its network further in the city, with Phase 2 already being approved.
There are two proposed lines, Yellow and Red, which will connect stretches between RV Road-Bommasandra (19.143 km) and Gottigere-Nagawara (21.415 km) respectively.