The services of Monorail were suspended between November 2017 and August 2018, due to an empty Monorail train catching fire at Mysore Colony Monorail station.
While the operations of Chembur-Wadala Monorail were restarted almost two weeks ago, its average daily ridership has gone down by around 30 per cent. Its daily average ridership is now around 9,000 to 10,000 pasesengers daily. Earlier, when it was operational between February 2014 and November 2017, ridership was around 15,000 passengers daily.
The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) feels that since it restarted only two weeks ago, commuters will take time to come back, and for which it also rolled back its plan to increase fares. They feel increasing fares would have increased revenue but would also lead to a decrease in ridership.
An MMRDA official said, "Ever since Monorail operations restarted on September 01, the ridership daily on an average is around 9,000 to 10,000 which is around 30 per cent less than what it used to be."
The MMRDA official added, "The reason behind ridership going down slightly could be because of the transit period, when one shifts from using one mode of transport to another. It has only been 15 days since the restarting of operations, and those using it will come back to using Monorail slowly once they come to know it has restarted or once their monthly pass for their current respective mode of transport is over."
The services of Monorail were suspended between November 2017 and August 2018, due to an empty Monorail train catching fire at Mysore Colony Monorail station.
The MMRDA has also put its plan of increasing fares for Monorail on hold from current structure of Rs 5,7,9,11 to Rs 10,20,30,40. "We anticipated 20 per cent increase in revenue but 20 per cent fall in ridership, and this would mean more people on road. Hence, fares will be increased only after second phase between Wadala and Jacob Circle is started next year," the MMRDA official further added.
As per current estimations, the per month operational cost for MMRDA to run Monorail between Chembur and Wadala is going to be more than Rs 5 crore, and the income from ticketing revenue is not expected to be more than Rs 30 lakh per month. Currently, Monorail has no revenue from non fare means like advertising or leasing of space on stations for stalls.
However, MMRDA is exploring to earn revenue by leasing space to telecom companies for installation of telecom infrastructure of mobile network towers on pillars of Monorail in order to earn revenue.
THE SUDDEN DIP IN NUMBERS
- Monorail ridership has gone down by around 30 per cent
- From 15,000 commuters daily between February 2014 to November 2017, to around 9,000 to 10,000 commuters daily ever since its services restarted on Sept 1, 2018
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