Two weeks after the opening of two crucial underground stretches, Chennai Metro Rail has witnessed an increase in the average number of daily travellers to nearly 45,000, with Chennai Airport being the most popular station with commuters.
Chennai Airport station sees an average of about 4,380 travellers a day, followed by 4,040 at Thirumangalam and 3,534 people taking the Metro at CMBT. Vadapalani and Chennai Central see an average of 3,369 and 3,239 users, respectively.
Chennai Metro sources said a significant number of air passengers have been using the Metro to reach the airport. “Since a travelator connects the Chennai Airport Metro station with both domestic and international terminals, it has become convenient for commuters,” added an official who did wish to be identified.
Thirumangalam Metro station caters to people going to places like Mogappair, Maduravoyal and Padi and hence witnesses decent passenger traffic, the sources explained.
Surprisingly, Chennai Egmore Metro station has only about 1,000 people travelling through it, but officials did not cite any reason for the low volume of traffic, even though the Metro station is very close to the Egmore railway station that connects southern districts and suburbs.
On May 25, Chennai Metro Rail opened two stretches — a 2.7-km stretch from Nehru Park to Chennai Central and a 4-km stretch from AG-DMS to Chennai airport, thus connecting four important transport hubs of the city — Chennai airport, Chennai Central, CMBT and Chennai Egmore. Till the opening of these two stretches, the average number of people using the system was around 27,000-28,000 daily. Now it has gone up to 45,000.
According to Chennai Metro Rail officials, one of the reasons for the increase is frequency. “During peak hours, there is a train every five minutes. When we add new stretches, the number of people using our system will naturally go up but what we are seeing now is much more than we expected. We may operate a train every 2.5 minutes if this number increases,” one of the officials said, again refusing to be identified.
