Avg 10,458 riders daily on Aqua Line in first month, says data

Over 3.24 lakh passengers took rides on the Noida-Greater Noida Metro in the first month, earning a revenue of more than Rs 1 crore to the Noida Metro Rail Corporation (NMRC), according to an official data.

The Aqua Line, the metro rail service that was opened for public on January 25, has recorded an average ridership of 10,458 passengers during the first 31 days of its operations, the NMRC data, accessed by PTI, stated.

"From January 26 to February 25, the NMRC earned a total revenue of Rs 1.02 crore with an average daily earning of Rs 3.30 lakh and served 3.24 lakh passengers during the period," it said.

The highest single day ridership of 14,314 passengers was recorded on the January 27 (Sunday), the second day after the launch of the Aqua Line. The same day the NMRC recorded its highest single day revenue of Rs 4.59 lakh.

NMRC Executive Director P D Upadhyay said the response has been "good" so far, considering the Aqua Line is a "stand alone" metro corridor.

He was also upbeat about ridership going up next month when the Blue Line's extended corridor that goes from Noida City Centre metro station to Electronic City (around Noida's Sector 62 and Ghaziabad's Indirapuram) is expected to begin.

Total 8,275 smart cards and 2.55 lakh QR-coded tickets were sold in the first month, it said, adding an average 267 smart cards and 8,234 tickets were sold daily during the period.

As many as 78.73 per cent passengers chose the QR-coded tickets, while 21.27 per cent preferred the smart cards for commutation, the data stated.

Built for Rs 5,503 crore, the Aqua Line connects Noida and Greater Noida via 21 stations spread over 29.7 km between the twin-cities in western Uttar Pradesh's Gautam Buddh Nagar district.

According to the NMRC figures, the average ridership per station during the first month stood at 498.

The five stations that saw the highest number of riders (average daily) are Sector 51 (2,391), Pari Chowk (1,642), Knowledge Park (799), NSEZ (731) and Sector 142 (702) all of them except for Sector 142 also being the highest revenue earners, the data said.

The five stations that saw the lowest number of riders (average daily) are Sector 147 (22), Sector 145 (33), Sector 146 (39), Sector 144 (40) and Sector 148 (128), it added.

Most of the QR-coded tickets and smart cards were sold at Sector 51 and Pari Chowk metro stations, which were also the spots where most passengers got their smart cards topped up, according to the data.

The NMRC data showed that the average revenue per passenger at Rs 31.59 and average revenue per station at Rs 15,732.