Last mile connectivity and its tremendous impact on Chennai metro ridership!!
Posted on: 23/Mar/2022 9:29:13 AM
The Coronavirus pandemic has affected the lives of the people and also their mode of their transport. This has led to poor footfalls in the public modes of transport is known. There has been a steady rise in the metro train patronage and in February month an average of 1.13lakh persons used metro trains for their destinations in Chennai. In the first week of March 2022, the metro train patronage shot up and on average 1.37lakhs used metro trains. The main reason for that was due to the CMRL taking steps to increase the last mile connectivity.
From the 4 metro stations in Chennai, mini buses operated for the commuters and Uber autos operated from 5 metro stations and the presence of Rapido bike taxis in as many as 22 metro stations have made life easier for many commuters of metro trains with respect to last mile connectivity.
According to an officer belonging to CMRL, about 4000 to 5000 commuters use Rapido bike taxis now and soon more people would be using metro trains. Unlike in the other metros, the absence of full-scale uniform last mile connectivity in Chennai has been an issue for many now.
Fragmented last mile connectivity would not serve any purpose and this was pointed out by a commuter from Pallavaram. He spoke about how CMRL must look into the convenience and requirements of the passengers. It must not be forgotten that 2 years back, the presence of share cars at the metro stations was highly beneficial for the commuters but now there is no such facility present. He concluded that CMRL must provide an exclusive last mile connectivity system that would operate from all metro stations for the commuters.
Many urban planning experts were of the view that interim provisions alone would not be good for the commuters. They mentioned that CMRL must also think of initiatives from the commuters point of view also for metro trains operations to be successful. For the convenience of the passengers, CMRL must hire shared cars just like they did in the past. This was as per Mr. K.P. Subramaniam, an urban planning expert.
