Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR) has been running three extra trips between Ameerpet and Raidurg, two extra trips between Mettuguda and Raidurg during morning peak hours and another four extra trips between Ameerpet and Nagole daily during evening peak hours daily on the Blue Line or Corridor Three of Nagole to Raidurg to deal with office rush.
“With these extra trips, we are having trains for every 2.45 minutes during the morning office rush hours between Ameerpet and Raidurg,” informed managing director N.V.S. Reddy. The cumulative ridership daily is now about 3.78 lakh, still below the pre-COVID peak when the patronage was over four lakh, with the Red Line or Corridor One between L.B. Nagar and Miyapur topping the charts with 2.12 lakh riders a day.
This is followed by the Blue Line with 1.63 lakh riders a day and the Green Line or Corridor Two between Jubilee Bus Station (JBS) and MGBS – Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station, Imlibun at 20,834 riders.
The MD stated that the frequency of the trains in the Red Line is 4.10 minutes from peak to non-peak hours going from 6/7/10 minutes, in the Blue Line the frequency is 5.30 minutes in the morning peak hours and 4.30 minutes in the evening peak hours. During the off-peak hours it is between 6.45 and 9.30 minutes. In the Green Line, the frequency is 7-9 minutes. The train availability in the early morning schedule is between 10 and 15 minutes frequency depending on the passenger demand.
Raidurg is the top station in terms of passenger footfall with 20,188 followed by Miyapur 16,890 and KPHB with 16,843. Other stations that has footfall of more than 10,000 passengers are Ameerpet 12,968 from Blue Line and 10,551 from Red Line; Uppal – 11,455; JNTU –11,327; Parade Grounds – 10,560; Secunderabad station with 9,611 and Hi-Tec City with 9,363 are almost there.
L&T Meto Rail Hyderabad (L&TMRH), which operates the trains, has been doing upto a 1,000 trips a day and around 800 during holidays and Sundays with the 57 sets of trains of which 53 keep running while four rakes are under maintenance.
Mr. Reddy once again reiterated that HMR has been built for three-coach train sets and each train can carry upto 900-1,000 passengers. Another three set coach train can be attached but a single or double coach cannot be attached into this system. If necessary, the frequency of the trains can be reduced further to run more services to carry more passengers, he said.
