Last month, on a weekday evening, Mumbai’s southbound Aqua Line metro train was nearly empty a couple of stops before its final destination. Upon de-boarding, the last station resembled a desolate Soviet-era structure rather than a bustling train terminal in a city known for its jostling crowds.
The Aqua Line, which opened last year, is the city’s new fully underground metro connecting the old business district of Cuffe Parade to newer commercial hubs like BKC and the airport terminals in the northern suburbs. The 33.5km (20.8-mile) corridor was expected to ease congestion in India’s financial capital and was projected to carry nearly 1.5 million passengers daily. However, actual numbers are about a tenth of that, according to various estimates.
“Not a lot of people are using the line. It’s too expensive,” a ticketing executive told the BBC at Cuffe Parade station.
The low passenger count on this corridor reflects a broader trend confronting the rapid expansion of India’s metro network.
Massive Investment, Disappointing Ridership
Since 2014, the Narendra Modi government has invested more than $26 billion in building metro connectivity across nearly two dozen Indian cities. The network has grown fourfold, from under 300km to over 1,000km by 2025. Average daily ridership has also almost quadrupled in the last decade, from three million to more than 11 million people.
However, these grand aggregate numbers mask worrying underlying data. Experts indicate that most metro systems in India have failed to achieve even a fraction of the ridership projected during their planning stages.
A 2023 report from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi revealed ridership of merely 25-35% of projected figures across various corridors. One of the study’s authors told the BBC that these numbers are unlikely to have significantly changed over 2024 and 2025. Other studies corroborate these findings.
According to the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) think tank, ridership in some tier-3 cities like Kanpur in the north was as low as 2% of the projected estimate, while in the southern city of Chennai, it was 37% for the first phase. Data shared with the BBC by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) also showed actual ridership of between 20-50% in cities such as Pune and Nagpur in western India.
The capital, Delhi, which boasts India’s widest metro network, is perhaps the only exception where usage has slightly surpassed projections. However, two transport experts – Aditya Rane of the ITDP and Ashish Verma of the Sustainable Transportation Lab at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru – told the BBC that this is because Delhi has begun to count interchanges as separate trips.
Why Are India’s Metros Struggling?
So, why has metro travel struggled in a country where car ownership is still low, and other public transport systems are overcrowded and overstretched? It’s a confluence of factors:
1. Inaccurate Demand Projections
Consultants often inaccurately project potential demand, says Verma. “It is a complex task [to project demand], and figures are sometimes exaggerated to show the project is economically viable,” he explained. He added that forecasts were often made based on “offered capacity” on the trains – such as a certain number of coaches or frequency times – which in many cases have never been realized.
For instance, in Bengaluru, peak-hour train frequency on the busiest line is five minutes or more, while on a newer line, it extends to 25 minutes. Similarly, many trains operate with only three to six coaches, whereas the busiest metro rail systems globally typically run with nine coaches and a frequency of a train every minute-and-a-half, according to the Sustainable Transportation Lab.
2. Affordability Concerns
Affordability, or the lack thereof, is another significant factor. A single journey on the Aqua line costs 10-70 rupees (£0.08-£0.56; $0.10-$0.70). In contrast, a three-month unlimited travel pass on the local Mumbai suburban railway is significantly cheaper at 590 rupees.
“In Indian metro systems, the integrated journey cost can consume 20% of income for lower-income workers, above the global benchmark of 10-15%,” says Rane. Verma notes an increasing tendency to reduce subsidies, which may not be ideal in a price-sensitive country like India. This was evident in citizens’ demonstrations after Bengaluru metro hiked fares last year, leading to a 13% drop in ridership, according to data collated by Greenpeace.
“Even the London Tube till today is heavily subsidised. Because there is a purpose. You are trying to provide sustainable mobility and decongest the city,” says Verma. Despite subsidies, London’s Tube remains among the world’s most expensive public transport systems.
3. Poor Network Planning & Last-Mile Connectivity
Other issues suppressing demand include poor network planning and last-mile connectivity. “People will switch to public transport only when waiting times are as low as possible,” Nandan Dawda, a fellow at ORF’s Urban Studies programme, told the BBC. A major problem in India is the insufficient number of feeder buses to handle last-mile connectivity, he states. Transit times between two lines are also often high and unwieldy; for example, at Hauz Khas station in Delhi, transferring from one line to another can take 15-20 minutes.
“Institutional disaggregation” impedes solving this, says Dawda. Various metro lines and bus networks, even within a single city, are run by different operators who often work in silos. “There needs to be better operational integration between them,” he adds.
4. Access and Safety Concerns
Poor walkways and concerns about women’s safety are also issues in India. “Access and approach to and from metro stations to other destinations has to be convenient to support the use of public transport,” said Verma. “If I am a tourist even in a city like Delhi, I can’t drag my bag to the metro easily and walk to my hotel 500m away.”
For residents like Chetna Yadav, 40, who lives in north Delhi, safety is a primary concern. “If I am coming home after sunset, I cannot rely on the metro. The station is about 15km from where I live, and when I reach the final stop at night, it is next to impossible to get a cab home. I have been stuck in that situation a few times.”
Future Outlook
Despite these challenges, experts foresee metro usage continuing to increase incrementally. Traffic, pollution, parking, and road safety issues have reached a tipping point in many Indian cities, leading to growing calls for congestion pricing for private vehicles.
However, without the promise of a cheaper, more seamless metro ride, a swift and dramatic rise in adoption is unlikely. “The systems most likely to improve strongly are the ones that get bus integration, station access and fare integration right. Without that, India may continue to build metros that are operationally useful but still underperform against their original projections,” says Rane.
Additional reporting by Nikita Yadav
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