BENGALURU: After being shut for 170 days, the first Green Line service of Namma Metro chugged off simultaneously from both terminal stations of Yelachenahalli and Nagasandra at 8 am on Wednesday.
With the Purple Line (Baiyappanahalli-Mysuru Road) having been launched a couple of days ago, the entire 42.3 km stretch of Phase-I of Metro now becomes operational for six hours a day.
The trains literally ran empty in the opening hour with the poor patronage continuing till the closure of services at 11 am. No one at the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) was willing to share the occupancy details of the morning despite repeated calls and messages in this connection to Managing Director Ajay Seth as well as the Public Relations team.
The trains will resume operations from 4.30 pm to 7.30 pm and continue to do so for another day. Beginning September 11, both the Purple Line and Green Line will be operated from 7 am to 9 pm.
Meanwhile, in the first two days of operations the Purple Line had 8801 commuters for the 12 hours it ran the services. This involved 183 round trips. On September 7, it was 3,770 on board while on September 8, it had a slight increase with 5031 commuters on board.
The maximum occupancy in an hour was the closing hour on Tuesday with 1338 riders.
Expressing optimism that patronage would pick up, BMRCL Managing Director Ajay Seth told The New Indian Express, “Resumption of Metro operation goes into higher grade with services being available on both lines from Wednesday.”
Thermal scanners to carry out temperature checks, sale of new Metro travel cards at stations, top-up through Point of Sale machines and NammaMetro app, sanitisers at all stations, clear social distancing markers, repeated announcements and messages on the need to stay safe during the pandemic are among the numerous steps taken by BMRCL to ensure safe travel for citizens.