MUMBAI: Some may call it a success story. But for frequent users of Metro 1, their patience is wearing thin. Long wait times on narrow, overcrowded platforms and a shoulder-to-shoulder commute during peak hours in closed air-conditioned coaches is not what the city promised when it flagged off Mumbai’s first metro rail corridor a decade ago.
Over the last couple of days, frustration has been spilling over on this Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar metro corridor. The stations at Ghatkopar, Andheri and Marol are particularly congested. An average 114,500 commuters use Ghatkopar station daily, 83,000 Andheri, and Marol Naka and Saki Naka more than 40,000 a day.
During the week, at least twice, passengers complained about stubborn queues near the automatic access control doors and being able to barely squeeze into the coaches.
“There are insane queues on Metro Line 1 at multiple stations, and you feel stuffy inside the AC metro trains during peak hours due to overcrowding. The government must intervene and at least ask the operator to increase the number of coaches,” said Andheri resident Dhaval Shah, who regularly travels on Line-1.
A vital east-west connector, Line 1 runs through major commercial hubs in the suburbs. It skirts the international airport, services the area around several luxury hotels, and passes though industrial and commercial areas such as Saki Naka and Marol, not to mention busy neighbourhoods in Andheri.
Moreover, Line 1 integrates with other metro rail corridors such as Lines 2A and 7, as well as the railways, an excellent example of multi-modal transport. Now it’s time to upgrade.
According to statistics provided by Mumbai Metro One Private Limited (MMOPL), which operates Line 1, this corridor caters to 4.55 lakh passengers daily. Footfalls have touched 5 lakh. Commuters are demanding an increase in the frequency of trains from the present 5-6 minutes. They also want coaches to be added to the trains, to increase their carrying capacity, thus bringing down wait times at metro stations.
Citizen activist Zoru Bhatena summed it up best when he vented his frustration in a post on X that read: “Decade-old Metro-1 runs packed on 4-coaches. Brand new Metro-3 runs empty on 8-coaches.”
MMOPL said there were no plans to upgrade the system, blaming overcrowding on the ongoing school vacations. In a bid to justify maintaining the status quo, they claim the number of commuters on Line 1 has not risen and the line is being “managed well”.
However, the numbers rose significantly when lines 2A and 7 opened in January 2023, increasing ridership on Line 1 by around 30,000. There is no major contribution to ridership from Line-3,” said an MMOPL official.
Transport experts point out that there were plans for the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) to take over operations of Line-1. This might have improved how the line was run. However, those plans fell through.