Boost feeder services to south suburban areas: Commuters

CHENNAI: The commuters have urged the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) to enhance the feeder service from the Airport Metro station to south suburban areas such as Anakaputhur, Kundrathur, Tambaram.

With 86.15 lakh passengers’ ridership recorded in February and 84.63 lakh passengers’ ridership recorded in January and average ridership increasing daily, the footfall in Metro Rail service has surged. However, the commuters say that the feeder service needs to be strengthened to cater to the needs of the public. The demands include deploying additional small buses at high-footfall stations, and replacement of small buses with regular buses with more seating space, and providing cut feeder services wherever necessary.

Speaking on the necessity for better feeder service from Airport Metro station, which has high footfall, a commuter said, “I have been a regular Metro commuter since its inception. It takes 35 minutes to travel to the office from the Airport station to the High Court station every day.”

Since traveling to the Metro station is time-consuming due to inadequate feeder services, the purpose of cutting travel time is not achieved, added the commuter.

Another commuter said, “It takes more than one hour or even two hours to reach my home in Anakaputhur through feeder service S69, as there are no frequent bus services even during peak office hours. Many commuters wait for the minibus to ride till Kundrathur.”

For the capacity of 25 passengers in the bus, nearly 50 passengers are commuting, and the inadequate feeder service thus impacts the purpose of cutting down travel time to home despite the availability of Metro service. “The easy, affordable, and effective transit experience is tampered with due to poor last-mile connectivity issues,” said a resident of Chitlapakkam.