Patronage for the Kochi metro’s feeder buses is on the rise.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Over two lakh commuters travelled in the fleet of 15 air-conditioned electric feeder buses that Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) introduced on January 16 on the metro’s feeder routes, the metro agency has said.
On concerns over inadequate patronage for the three feeder buses that were introduced on March 19 on the High Court-MG Road-High Court circular route, KMRL said hope was still not lost since the daily patronage for buses in the corridor had doubled during the past couple of weeks to an average of 773 passengers a day. Buses are operating in the passenger-dense corridor every 10 minutes.
A total of 8,573 commuters travelled in the feeder buses in the circular route alone. While 1,556 commuters travelled in them in the first week after their launch on the route, their number more than doubled to 5,415 in the week between March 29 and April 4. A couple of feeder buses will shortly begin service in the Kadavanthra-Panampilly Nagar corridor, which lacks public transport bus connectivity, it is learnt.
An average of 3,102 passengers have been travelling daily in the fleet of feeder e-buses on different routes. An average of 1,350 commuters travelled daily in the feeder buses from the metro’s Aluva terminal to the international airport, taking the total number of commuters on the route to 1.02 lakh. A total of 890 people are relying daily on feeder buses to Infopark, metro sources said.
Vyttila circular
KMRL is, however, facing flak from commuters for not introducing feeder buses through the passenger-dense Vyttila-Menaka-Vyttila circular route where there is paucity of intra-city air-conditioned buses. Metro sources said this and other routes where there is demand could be covered when more feeder buses were added to the fleet, considering that the city was expanding eastward of the Edappally-Aroor bypass.
Published – April 06, 2025 02:08 am IST
