The Chennai Metro Rail has now revised its Sunday timings. Metro trains on Sundays will now operate from 6.00 am to 11.00 pm. Earlier on Sundays, the first train would start at 8.00 am and operate until 10.00 pm. CMRL has made this revision based on increasing demand from commuters, according to its release.
The frequency, however, will remain the same with trains operating every seven minutes on Sundays.
The Chennai Metro has been rolling out new plans to help boost its ridership over the past few months.
According to The Hindu, Chennai Metro in a bid to boost its ridership has also started giving passengers 50% discounts on Sundays. The ridership of Chennai Metro Rail, which hovers around 1.2 lakh on weekdays, falls sharply to around 70,000 on Sundays. In order to boost the number, the Metro Rail administration is working on a proposal to implement various measures that could draw people to use the service.
Trial runs were being conducted by the Chennai metro to change train frequencies to every 2.5 minutes. Currently, trains arrive at a frequency of one every 5 minutes during peak hours, one every 7 minutes during non-peak hours and one every 15 minutes during extended non-peak hours.
On September 14, Saturday, Chennai Metro conducted a trial run with a 2.5-minute frequency of trains that went on till Sunday morning. According to reports, direct trains were suspended from 8 pm onwards and the trial run began at 10 pm from St Thomas Mount Metro Station to Chennai Central Metro station with trains being made available every 2.5 minutes.
In an effort to reduce time spent buying tickets or recharging smart cards, the Chennai Metro Rail is planning to introduce a line of watches that could be scanned instead to help you hop onto a coach. The project, currently being planned in collaboration with watch and eyewear brand Titan, is likely to be rolled out in eight months.
Source: The News Minute