Is Mumbai Local Losing Popularity? Report Shows 20% Decline in Daily Commuters Using Suburban Trains

Mumbai local trains have been popular for a long time now. Residents of Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai, and other nearby areas have long been using the mode of transport for their daily commute. However, new data suggests that the ridership in these local trains has significantly reduced, especially after the pandemic hit.

New assessment data shows an over 20 per cent decline in daily ridership in Mumbai’s suburban trains. Despite being termed as the city’s “lifeline” popularly, the local trains saw a fall of 14.39 lakh commuters, with only 61.95 lakh riders in the current financial year. For instance, the number of commuters from Andheri and Dahisar stations has also dropped.

Notably, the financial year 2019-2020 before the pandemic, saw 76.34 lakh commuters board the Mumbai local, a Times Now report said. This year’s drop is even more than last financial year, when the Central Railways had seen commuters decline by 6.09 lakh, the news report further said.

Even the Western Railway (WR) saw a sharp decline of 8.30 lakh, in the number of commuters this financial year, from 34.87 lakh daily commuters in FY20 to 26.57 lakh in FY23.

On the other hand, local trains have also been witnessing technical snags of late. Services were recently hampered when an overhead wire snapped between Dahisar and Borivali on the Churchgate-bound fast line, an ANI report said on Wednesday.

Besides, other reasons for a decline in ridership could be the rising popularity of others of transport, like cabs. Meanwhile, metro services have also become popular in Mumbai in recent times. The launch of Metro Lines 2A and 7, could be responsible for the decline in suburban train services, as commuters might be opting for the metro instead, Times Now further stated in its report.

The data on ridership is calculated based on the number of tickets bought for the commute. However, it is a common practice among Mumbaikars to be boarding local trains without a ticket. This also raises concerns about the quality of the suburban train network.

Since a significant decline in ridership was observed after the pandemic, social distancing and rising Covid cases could also be some of the reasons, experts noted.

Apart from new launches of the metro rail corridors, BEST bus services have also improved in the city. In February this year, India’s first electric air-conditioned double-decker bus was added to the fleet.

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