Now, a Metro every 15 mins on Expressline

From today, trains on the Airport Expressline will run at 15 minutes’ interval throughout the operational period – 5 am to 11pm. HT reports.

From today, trains on the Airport Expressline will run at 15 minutes’ interval throughout the operational period – 5 am to 11pm. Earlier, the concessionaire company, Reliance Infrastructure, had increased the train frequency to 15 minutes only for the peak hours between 7am and 11am.

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The increase in frequency of trains was a long-pending demand of the commuters and the fulfillment of the demand is expected to boost the Expressline’s ridership.

“With the opening of the Dhaula Kuan and Aerocity stations last Monday and the increase in train frequency from Monday, the ridership figures will see a further boost,” said a Reliance Infrastructure official.

Ridership on the 23km corridor with six operational stations that register an average daily footfall of 13,000 commuters has been growing at a rate of 10% every month, says the concessionaire firm.

“Our internal study, ‘Voice of Commuters’, indicates that there has been a growing demand to increase the train frequency to every 15 minutes for the whole operational day. Based on this, we have decided to extend the train frequency to every 15 minutes for the whole operational day,” said Anil P Gupta, President, Reliance Infrastructure.

Lalit Jalan, CEO Reliance Infrastructure, said: “With the increased frequency of 15 minutes, Delhi Airport Metro is now at par with major international airport metros in Heathrow in London and Hong Kong as far as service frequency is concerned. Depending on increased traffic flow and commuters’ feedback, we may further increase the train frequency in future.”

To meet the growing demand of increased frequency, one more train has been deployed on the line taking the total number of trains to four. Three trains have been kept on standby for the convenience of commuters and will be pressed into action when required, said officials.