Delhi Airport Metro ridership has seen a three-fold increase from April 2015 to August 2016. On August12, the line recorded a ridership of 50,077, crossing the 50,000 mark for the first ever time.
Delhi Airport Metro ridership has seen a three-fold increase from April 2015 to August 2016. On August12, the line recorded a ridership of 50,077, crossing the 50,000 mark for the first ever time. In August, the average ridership on the corridor was between 40,000 to 43,000 everyday.
“Delhi Metro took over operations of the Airport Express Line on July 1, 2013 with a ridership of around 9,000. Various steps, such as extension of timings to suit the passengers of Shatabdi Express trains, improvement of frequency from 15 minutes to 10 minutes 30 seconds, improvement of speed from 70 kmph to 80 kmph, seamless interchange between the Indian Railways station at New Delhi and Metro stations resulted in increase in ridership to 14,200 a day,” said a DMRC official.
Metro smart cards were made valid for travel on the Airport Line on May 1, 2015. DMRC reached the 25,000 ridership mark on the corridor on May 11, 2015 with figures of 26,580. Second fare reduction was introduced with effect from September 18, 2015. On November 5, 2015 more than 35,000 people travelled by the Airport Line (35,405).
The increased footfall has resulted in — increased fare box as well as non farebox revenues. The monthly average ridership on this section has increased from 17,535 in April, 2015 to 37,772 in July, 2016 registering a more than double increase.
On August 12, 2016 the corridor recorded a ridership of 50,077, crossing the 50,000 mark for the first ever time. In August, the average ridership on the corridor was between 40 to 43,000 everyday. DMRC has also taken a slew of measures to attract commuters to the line, operations of which it took over from Reliance Infrastructure in July 2013, a spokesperson said.
Earlier the Central government wants all passenger flights to operate from Terminal-3. The civil aviation ministry had recently asked the Delhi airport operator to come up with a concrete plan to shift all operation related to passenger aircraft from Terminal-1D to Terminal-3. According to the DMRC, Terminal-3 is well connected with the Airport Express Metro line. Two Airport Express Metro stations (T-3 and Aero City) already function at the IGI Airport, carrying thousands of passengers everyday and the third Metro station (T-1D) on the Noida-Janakpuri line is in the advanced stages of construction.
Delhi Metro official said: “If flight operation from Terminal 1-D will be shifted to Terminal 3, Airport Express passengers’ number will increase automatically,” said a senior DMRC official.
