BENGALURU:It is with much optimism that Namma Metro chugged into a new month on Wednesday. Reason: July turned out to be the best ever month both on the ridership and revenue fronts for the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL).
Metro clocked a ridership of 1.15 crore commuters which in turn helped it rake in a fare revenue of Rs 31.4 crore making last month its best ever operationally since its inception in October 2011. This is the first ever month that the daily average earnings crossed Rs 1 crore.
The huge unexpected gain has been the sale of 94,734 Metro cards — nearly double that of the 49,823 cards sold in June. The ridership during June was 1.1 crore commuters.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, A S Shankar, Executive Director, Operations and Maintenance, BMRCL, said, “Large number of people are now waking up to the positives of a Metro ride like punctuality of its trains (over 99%) and the comfortable and traffic-free journey it offers. The increase in Metro trips launched during non-peak hours since July 16 on both the Green and Purple lines has also played a crucial role in making July a month of achievements for us.”
BMRCL also touched two new highs: operation of 300 trips a day on some days and crossing a revenue of Rs 1.3 crore on a single day (July 3). The launch of the six-coach train (on June 22) too played an indirect role, Shankar felt. “Commuters have realised the trains are no longer jampacked and have opted for travelling by Metro over other modes of transport,” he added. The timings of this longish train were tweaked to cater to specific rush hours.
What was really impressive was the whopping increase in sale of the Metro cards which offers a 15% discount on every trip. Altogether 60.25% of the overall commuters for July made use of a smart card compared to 56% in June, revealed statistics.
“A combination of factors like repeated marketing at Metro stations on its display screens, public announcements and publicity through media resulted in awareness of the benefits of using the cards,” Shankar added.