Airport Metro sees 30% rise in ridership after fare reduction

The Airport Express line of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has recorded about 30 per cent rise in its ridership following the fare reduction of up to 40 per cent in July last year.

DMRC has also taken a slew of measures to attract commuters on the line, operations of which it took over from Reliance Infrastructure in July, 2013, a spokesperson said.

According to data provided by the Delhi Metro, the ridership figures of July, 2013 and July, 2014 were recorded as 3,12,132 and 3,18,274 respectively, with corresponding average daily ridership of 10,069 and 13,838, showing no marked improvement over a period of one year.

But after the fares were reduced on July, 2014, the ridership jumped to 5,38,293 lakh in November taking the average daily ridership close to 18,000, as per official data.

As per the revised structure, minimum fare on the corridor is now Rs 20 instead of Rs 30 and the maximum fare has been brought down to Rs 100 from Rs 180.

Delhi Metro authorities stated that among the other measures taken to augment ridership on this line are alignment of timings with premier trains like Shatabdi Express and launch of a feeder bus service from Shivaji Stadium.

"The timings of the first service of the day was rescheduled to 4.45 AM from New Delhi and Dwarka Sector 21 to connect with trains of Indian Railways. Earlier, the first train timings were 5.30 AM from New Delhi and 5.15 AM from Dwarka Sector 21," a DMRC spokesperson said.

Delhi Metro has also increased the frequency of train availability on the corridor by increasing the number of daily train trips.

"Total daily train trips on the corridor have been increased to 168 from 148 upping the frequency on the corridor from 15 minutes to 10 minutes 30 seconds during peak hours," the spokesperson said.

DMRC took over operations of the 22.7 km-long Airport Express link on July 1, 2013 after Reliance Infrastructure's subsidiary Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Ltd (DAMEPL) terminated its concessionaire agreement.