Mumbai News

Mumbai Monorail ridership to go up by over 1.5 lakh by 2024 – The Indian Express

Officials of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) are placing their bets on the city’s upcoming Metro lines to help revive the monorail line in Mumbai.

Officials hope the monorail’s ridership shows a ten-fold jump from the existing 15,000 to 1.5 lakh daily in 2024, once it gets integrated with two upcoming Metro rail lines.

The monorail’s VN Purav station will connect with Metro Line 2B (DN Nagar to Mandale) V N Purav station. Similarly, Metro line 4 (Wadala to Kasarvadavali) will integrate with the monorail station at Bhakti Park.

In June, the MMRDA had changed the subcontractor of Metro Line 4 due to delay in completing the project, and a plan was implemented to expedite and complete it. Similarly, work on the Metro Line 2B D N Nagar to Mandale has been started again. Metro Line 2B is 25 per cent ready so far.

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The MMRDA believes the Metro corridor will bring more ridership to the monorail. With seven rakes in operation and one more added very soon. SVR Srinivas, MMRDA Commissioner said, “We have put the old retrofitted rake on trial run. It will continue for another 4-5 days and thereafter, it will be added into the fleet.”

With this one additional rake, MMRDA expects the daily ridership to rise to 25,000 daily , further increasing the number of trips from 114 to 142 per day.

The Mumbai Monorail is also looking at ways to improve its services through new technology, like building a moving walkway ‘travelator’ at Jacob circle station to link the monorail and Metro line with the suburban railway line. The MMRDA has also given a work order to manufacture 10 new rakes to increase frequency and number of trips to cater to the expected increase in ridership demand of more than 1.5 lakh daily in the next two years.

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The Mumbai Monorail was commissioned in 2014 on a short 8.9-km stretch between Wadala and Chembur and later in March 2019, the Phase 2 of the monorail between Sant Ghadge Maharaj (SGM) Chowk to Wadala was commissioned.

While the monorail has the capacity to carry 2 lakh passengers every day, it failed to get ridership. The project had been plagued with several issues over the years and was not operational for nearly a year after a fire gutted two coaches in November 2017.

From SGM Chowk to Chembur, the entire monorail is 19.54-km-long and the ticket price is between Rs 10 and Rs 40, depending on the distance travelled.

Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/mumbai-monorail-ridership-to-go-up-by-over-1-5-lakh-by-2024-8188062/