At 6.81 million, Delhi Metro records its highest ridership on August 28

While DMRC could not point out a particular reason for the surge in the number of passengers on Monday (August 28), daily ridership over the last few years has shown a spike around festive seasons

The Delhi Metro carried 6.81 million people on Monday (August 28), the highest ridership in a day recorded by the mass transit system during its two-decade-long run in the national capital, according to data shared by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).

This beats the previous record of 6.61 million recorded on February 10, 2020, DMRC officials said.

“This remarkable milestone comes after a period of challenges and reflects the resilience and trust of the Delhi-NCR citizens in the world-class transportation system provided by DMRC. This milestone underscores our mission to provide accessible, reliable, and sustainable transportation solutions,” Anuj Dayal, principal executive director, corporate communications at DMRC was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times (HT).

On Monday, the busiest line was the Yellow Line (Millenium City Centre-Samaypur Badli), which recorded a ridership of 1.87 million, followed by the Blue Line (Dwarka Sector 21-Noida Electronic City/Vaishali), on which 1.8 million people travelled. This was followed by the Red Line (Shaheed Sthal-Rithala), which carried 735,000 passengers, DMRC data showed.

While DMRC could not point out a particular reason for the surge in the number of passengers on Monday, daily ridership over the last few years has shown a spike around festive seasons, officials said, adding that the ridership typically goes up around the festival of Raksha Bandhan.

Highest ridership since pre-Covid-19 times

Officials also stated that in the past one year since July 2022, Delhi Metro has recorded an average daily ridership of 5.5-6 million passengers, which is over 90 per cent of the pre-pandemic average of 6-6.5 million.

Metro operations were suspended between March and September to combat the spread of Covid-19.

“The average ridership is nearing pre-pandemic levels,” a DMRC official said.

DMRC operates a network of approximately 391 km in Delhi-NCR which consists of 287 stations and 12 Metro lines, including the Rapid Metro Line in Gurugram and the Aqua Line in Noida.

Extra train services for Raksha Bandhan

Meanwhile, DMRC also announced it would run 106 extra train trips across its corridors on Wednesday (August 30) to facilitate any additional passenger rush for Raksha Bandhan.

“Additional standby trains will also be kept for induction into services to clear the rush, if required,” said DMRC’s Anuj Dayal, adding that they will also deploy more staff at Metro stations to cater to the extra passenger rush.