Delhi Metro: Closure of malls, colleges may lead to variation in passenger journey figures

As the government has announced several measures to combat the coronavirus, including closure of shopping malls, schools and colleges, there could be "some variation in the passenger journey figures" of the Delhi Metro in the coming days, the DMRC said on Monday.

The number of passenger journeys is dependent on various factors at any given point of time such as vacations, examinations, monsoon season, festivals, strikes, closures etc. And line utilisation follows a monthly pattern accordingly, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) said in a statement.

"It is to mention that in comparison to the passenger journey figures of the corresponding month of March in 2019 and 2020, there is no significant variation with average journey figures of 46.22 lakh and 46.53 recorded so far respectively (rather showing a marginal increase over last year)," it said.

It was also stated that every year, the month of March "witnesses a natural dip of 10-15 per cent" in comparison to the figures for the month of February.

The same trend was visible up to March 15 this year too with passenger journeys going from 57.13 lakh (in February) to 46.53 lakh (in March), it said.

"However, as the government has announced several measures to combat coronavirus which include closure of malls, cinemas, schools, colleges etc., it may be natural to witness some variation in the passenger journey figures of the Delhi Metro in the coming days," the statement said.

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It is also to be noted that taking into account all the weekdays (except Holi on March 10 when the Delhi Metro was closed till 2:30 pm) of March so far, the average passenger journeys is recorded at 55.42 lakh against the overall average of the first 15 days of March at 46.53 lakh, it added.