The Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL), in a statement, has informed that it witnessed the highest footfall this year after more than five lakh commuters used the metro rail services on October 20 and 21. According to the CMRL data. 2.48 lakh passengers used the Chennai Metro on Thursday, October 20, which was the highest footfall this year. This record was broken the very next day on Friday, which witnessed 2.63 lakh passengers using the metro.
According to the CMRL statement, the most used metro station on Friday was the Puratchi Thalaivar Dr MGR Central Metro station, with over 22,383 passengers, followed by Thirumangalam station with 14,106 passengers and Guindy which saw 14,142 commuters.
CMRL says that metro ridership is seeing a gradual spike this year, after a dull period owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. From 1.35 lakh passengers on January 3, the Chennai metro increased ridership to 2.02 lakh commuters on June 3, followed by 2.46 lakh on September 30 and 2.63 lakh on October 21.
According to the statement, it is also for the first time this month that more than 2.5 lakh passengers used Chennai metro in a single day. Presently, the average daily ridership is oscillating around the 2 lakh range, even as the predicted average in the Detailed Project Report (DPR) is expected to be around 4.33 lakh commuters for the year 2020-21.
It has also been reported a few times over the recent past that none of the four metros in South India –Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kochi have recorded enough operational revenues to meet the principal and interest repayments.