‘ In 2018, Metro daily ridership 32% less than projected’

New Delhi, Sept. 4: The Delhi Metro has received nearly 32 per cent less than the number of daily passengers it had hoped to serve this year, according to a study by the Centre of Science and Environment.

The research and advocacy group attributed fare hike as the reason behind the sudden drop in ridership, approximately by 4.2 lakh passengers in 2018 as compared to the previous year.

While the average daily ridership projections made by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation ( DMRC) in 2016 stood at around 40 lakh for this year, it has been only around 27 lakh — 31.66 per cent less than the projections, the study said.

This, say CSE experts, “is symptomatic of the lack of overall policy for pricing of all transport services and a lack of strategy for funding of these systems and increasing ridership”.

Individual metro and bus systems are struggling to recover costs and retain and improve ridership, in the absence of any strategy to address the issues, the organisation noted on the first day of the two- day CSE International Conclave Towards Clean and Low Carbon Mobility. “In is ironical that when travel demand is exploding in cities the transport service providers are facing a crisis,” it said in a statement. Of nine metropolitan cities across the world which have operational metro systems and where the cost for a 10- km trip is less than half- a- US dollar, the Delhi Metro remains the second- most unaffordable system in terms of percentage of income spent for using it, it said.

As per CSE’s calculations, daily- wage labourer in Delhi has to spend an average of eight per cent of his or her income on commute.