Delhi Metro’s ridership crosses 1bn mark

The annual ridership of the Delhi Metro crossed the one billion mark for the first time on Wednesday.

As the financial year 2016-17 has come to an end, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) revealed its latest ridership figures according to which 100.165 crore passengers travelled in the Delhi Metro from April 1, 2016 to March 29, 2017.

Besides, the Metro has also seen a 43% increase in the average daily ridership in the last five years. From the previous financial year, the growth is almost 7%.

“Since April 1, 2016, a total of (Avg daily ridership) 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 1.001 billion passengers have travelled by the Delhi Metro till last night, registering a 6.56% growth in average daily ridership since the last financial year 2015-16,” the DMRC said in a statement. 2015-16 2016-17*

The Delhi Metro currently operates with a fleet of 227 train sets comprising of 128 six coach, 58 eight coach and 41 four coach trains across all its corridors. The process of adding 258 new coaches to the fleet to augment the carrying capacity of the system has been started since October 2016 and the process is scheduled to be completed by the end of the next financial year.

The ridership increase can also be attributed to the expanding network of the Delhi Metro. From 190 km in 2012-13, the city’s Metro network has now increased to 213km. This is further going to go up to nearly 400km with the opening of the Phase-III of the network.

“The Delhi Metro today ranks 10th in terms of ridership among the 34 top Metro systems in the world. The cumulative ridership of the Delhi Metro within a financial year has crossed the one billion mark for the first time,” a Metro official said.