At 6.81million, Delhi Metro recorded its highest-ever ridership on Monday

Delhi Metro recorded its highest ever ridership with 6.81 million passengers on Monday, surpassing the previous record of 6.61 million set in February 2020. The busiest lines were the Yellow Line, followed by the Blue Line and the Red Line. The increase in ridership is attributed to the upcoming festival of Raksha Bandhan. DMRC has been operating at around 90% of pre-pandemic levels, with an average daily ridership of 5.5-6 million passengers. DMRC will be running extra train trips and deploying additional staff to accommodate the expected surge in passengers during Raksha Bandhan.

The Delhi Metro carried 6.81 million passengers on Monday -- 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) on Tuesday.

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. (HT Archive)

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,” said Anuj Dayal, principal executive director, corporate communications at DMRC.

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 spike in number of passengers on Monday, daily ridership over the last few years has shown a spike around festive seasons, officials said. The ridership usually goes up around the festival of Raksha Bandhan which is going to be celebrated on Wednesday.

Officials also said that in the last one year since July 2022, the Delhi Metro has been recording an average daily ridership of 5.5-6 million passengers, which is over 90% of the pre-pandemic average of 6-6.5 million.

Metro operations were shut between March and September due to restrictions imposed to curb the spread of Covid-19.

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

DMRC operates a network of approximately 391km 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.

DMRC on Tuesday said it will be running 106 extra train trips across its corridors on Wednesday 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 additional staff at Metro stations to cater to the extra passenger rush.