New Delhi: Ridership on all metro rail networks in India is less than 50 percent of their projected ridership, according to a report by IIT-Delhi and Delhi-based think tank The Infravision Foundation.
According to the report, presented on 4 December at a conference by the Confederation of Indian Industry and The Infravision Foundation, ridership of most metro rail systems in India is 25-30 percent of projected ridership — ridership forecast as mentioned in the Detailed Project Report (DPR) which outlines the intended objectives of a project. The only exception was the Delhi metro, which it said has a ridership equal to 47.45 percent of its projected ridership.
“Metro systems operating in India have 25-35 percent projected ridership. Since all benefits and revenue generation is dependent on the actual ridership, none of the systems have achieved the estimated benefits at the time of approval of the project,” said the report, titled ‘A framework for selecting an appropriate urban transport system in Indian cities’.
Though the country’s first metro rail project was developed by the Indian Railways and commissioned in Kolkata in 1984, large-scale expansion of the network picked up pace only after the inauguration of the first corridor of the Delhi metro in 2002. According to the report, India has 905 km of operational metro network in nearly 20 cities, including Delhi-NCR. This includes the more than 600 km approved in the past nine years for Kanpur, Surat, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Indore, Agra, Patna, Kochi, Pune, Nagpur, Lucknow etc.
However, as the report pointed out, most of these operational metro projects have fallen short of achieving the projected ridership.
“Even the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), which has the largest network in India, has less than 50 percent of the projected ridership,” Geetam Tiwari, a professor at IIT-Delhi who co-authored the report alongside assistant professor Deepty Jain, told ThePrint.
The parliamentary panel on housing and urban affairs too raised the issue of low ridership of metro rail networks in its report tabled in July 2022. Average daily ridership of the Delhi metro, the panel noted then, was 50.65 lakh commuters in 2020-21 — more than the 38.34 lakh-mark which was required for the DMRC to break even.
Pointing out the difference between minimum ridership and projected ridership, Tiwari said, “The ridership projected in the detailed project report is used for estimating all benefits and for calculating economic rate of return. The break even ridership is the minimum ridership required to meet the operational cost. To get the full benefit and justify the project cost, projected ridership is important.”
DMRC officials said that the Delhi Metro has met the ridership target needed for a mass transit system in Delhi. “DMRC is catering to around 67 lakh passenger journeys per day on weekdays — it has already exceeded the projected figures in DPR. There have been some setbacks due to COVID-19, but passengers’ journeys are picking up now,” a DMRC spokesperson said.
Besides metro rail projects, the report by IIT-Delhi and The Infravision Foundation also highlighted the need for a robust, reliable public bus transport system in all cities, including large cities with expansive metro connectivity, stating that for most city dwellers, their daily commute is “less than 10 km in length regardless of densities and incomes”.
Even in large cities including Delhi and Mumbai, the daily commute for nearly 35 percent of residents is less than 5 km, it added. The report assessed work-related travel patterns in urban areas based on population, area and income to assess the demand.
“Trips shorter than 5 km are suitable for walking, bicycling and IPTs (integrated public transport). Regardless of city size, all roads should become walking, bicycling-friendly and an integrated para-transit system should be made available. While large cities like Delhi, Mumbai etc. can have 300-400 km of metro network, it is crucial to provide a robust, reliable network of buses,” said Tiwari.
Jagan Shah, chief executive officer of The Infravision Foundation, said the report is a ready reckoner for policy makers. “They will understand why integrated public transport systems must account for the network of locations for boarding and alighting from each mode of transport, the different technologies required for travel and the different investments and operational costs associated with each mode,” he told ThePrint.
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Affordability & integrated public transport
The 75-page report also touched on why the choice of public transport is determined by the “affordability of the end user”.
“A household with a monthly income of Rs 36,000 can afford only Rs 80 per person per day in a household…This cost will include fare for last mile connectivity and provided that no other member in the household incurs travel expenditures. Similarly, a household earning Rs 12,000 a month can afford only Rs 26 per person per day to meet travel needs at 10 percent benchmark of the affordable transport system,” said the report.
It added that very few urban districts in India have more than 10 percent of the population with a monthly income greater than Rs 36,000. At Rs 40 per trip, “Only 10-18 percent of the population in certain urban districts can use a public transport system”, it said.
Emphasising that cost is one of the most important factors influencing one’s choice of public transport, Tiwari said, “This is why there is a need to ensure that public transport is affordable, especially in big cities where the travel distance is more.”
Further, the report found that even in cities “with a population greater than 80 lakhs and densities greater than 100 person per hectare, the average of the percentage of trips greater than 10 km are 17 percent only”.
In most Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, the report said, the average commute is short and the lack of an efficient public transport system is why many are dependent on personal vehicles. For instance, in many Tier-2 cities including Bhopal, Meerut, Agra, Patna and Kanpur, the report found that nearly 45 percent of work-related commute is shorter than 5 km.
“Formal bus system with a full network running on all arterial roads is required to serve the peak demand. Bus routes on all arterial roads at a frequency of 10 per hour may be able to attract sufficient commuters. Open BRT (bus rapid transit) system can provide a high quality PT (public transport) service on major corridors,” the report recommended.
It also highlighted that lately, efforts to upgrade the existing public transport grid have “generally been linked to bus technology and promotion of electric buses”.
“Very little effort has gone into performance improvement of buses. The public transport ridership continues to reduce in most cities and use of motorised two wheelers and cars continue to increase,” it added.
In August 2023, the central government launched the PM-eBus Sewa Scheme under which around 10,000 electric buses will be provided in Tier-2 and Tier 3 cities on Public Private Partnership (PPP) basis. While domain experts agree that electric buses are a step in the right direction, they add that key to discouraging the use of personal vehicles is to ensure an efficient public bus system and integration of all modes of public transport.
“Today, metro projects have become more of a fashion statement. There is a need to carefully assess the demand for metro in cities, especially Tier-2 cities, before proposing these projects,” Aswathy Dilip, managing director, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy – India, told ThePrint.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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