Delhi Metro: Ridership soared, fines rose as city unlocked in June

New Delhi: Ever since its train services reopened to commuters from June 7 after a month's hiatus in view of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Delhi Metro has seen a four-fold increase in footfall, with serpentine queues outside metro stations due to few entry gates and crowded compartments during peak hours.

Data now shows that passenger journeys across all corridors have nearly doubled in less than a month this year as compared to the reopening in September last year.

In addition to an increase from last year, the passenger journeys this year too, in less than a month's time, have seen an increase of around 8 lakh since reopening, data revealed.

The average passenger journeys on June 7, when services reopened, to that on June 30, shot up from 4.5 lakh to nearly 16 lakh. The average passenger journeys for all of this June was around 12 lakh.

Last year, the average line utilization in September was around 6 lakhs. Line utilization is the number of journeys completed from origin to destination across lines.

Similarly, fines or challans for not wearing masks inside the Metro and stations too have spiralled with close to 6,000 challans being issued to passengers by flying squads under the Metro Railways (Operation and Maintenance) Act, 2002.

In response to crowds gathering outside metro stations due to paucity of entry gates and low carrying capacity, the DMRC had earlier said that it is running almost empty trains as it is carrying only 10 to 15 per cent of its passenger capacity.

The DMRC is now running at full capacity with 5,100 daily train trips at a peak frequency of 2.5 to 5 minutes on all the major corridors but officials have said the crowds outside can be stopped only if the trains are allowed to carry more passengers.