Shut for 6 months to breaking ridership record, how Airport Express scripted a turnaround

NEW DELHI: When Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) took over the Airport Express Line in 2013, it was running off track. It remained shut for six months, carried

NEW DELHI: When Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) took over the Airport Express Line in 2013, it was running off track. It remained shut for six months, carried only 9,000 passengers every day and chugged at a speed of 50 kmph instead of the promised 80 kmph.

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Three years on, the line has bounced back to life. Last week, it recorded its highest ridership ever when a little over 50,000 people travelled on it in a single day.

The highest ridership on this line was 12,000 in March 2014, which increased to 19,466 in 2015.

DMRC said the monthly average ridership on this section has more than doubled from 17,535 in April, 2015 to 37,772 in July, 2016. VIPs, including Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu, travel on this line often, tweeting pictures once in a while.

To attract passengers, DMRC revised the fare twice and made several passenger friendly changes to ensure more people use this line.

The maximum fare has been reduced to Rs 60 from Rs 180. The minimum is now Rs 10 against Rs 50 in 2013.

“Various steps such as extension of timings to suit the passengers of Shatabdi Express trains, improvement of frequency from 15 minutes to 10 minutes 30 seconds, improvement of speed from 70 kmph to 80 kmph, seamless interchange between the Indian Railways station at New Delhi and Metro stations resulted in increase in ridership to 14,200 a day from 9,000 when we took over,” said a DMRC spokesperson.

Metro smart cards were made valid for travel on the airport line from May 1, 2015 and because of this, on May 11, 2015, the ridership was 26,580. Second fare reduction was introduced from September 18, 2015 and on November 5, 35,405 people used the line.

On August 12, the ridership reached to 50,077. “The increased footfall has resulted in increase in revenue both from fare and non-fare. As more passengers are coming in, the land which were lying vacant are now attracting bidders. At Shivaji stadium, most of the space is out for rent,” said a DMRC official.

To increase the number of airport-bound passengers, the DMRC had written a letter to the aviation ministry, asking it to either shift the low cost airlines from terminal 1D to Terminal 3 or provide connectivity to transport check-in baggage from aerocity metro station to Terminal 1D.