Pune: At least 3.4 lakh people travelled by Metro on the two operational routes on Tuesday in view of road closures to facilitate smooth Ganapati immersion processions. Officials attributed the ‘record single-day ridership' partly to the round-the-clock Metro operations on the last day of the Ganeshotsav .
Maximum footfall was recorded at Deccan Gymkhana, Garware College, PMC, PCMC, Civil Court, Ramwadi and Pune Metro stations, the official said. Paud Road resident Vivek Deshmukh and his family availed of the Metro service to reach Alka Talkies Chowk. Deshmukh said though the train was jam-packed, he found it a viable option since several roads were closed for vehicular traffic.
Dapodi resident Abhay Bhat said he was able to return home late at night in the Metro without any hassle. A total of 20.44 lakh commuters travelled by Metro during the 11 days of Ganeshotsav.
The daily ridership had surged to 2.23 lakh on Sep 14 and 2.25 lakh on Sept 15.
On all the 11 days, the Metro's daily ridership remained above 1 lakh. The officials said additional staff was deployed at the stations to manage the crowd and movement of trains, which ran at a frequency of five minutes. "About 74% of the total passengers purchased tickets digitally," an official said.
A section of commuters complained of glitches in buying tickets at the counters and online on the last day. Bharat Sanap, a resident of Satara Road, said huge queues were seen at the ticket scanning counters, but it was mainly because of the huge footfall. "We were expecting Metro trains to run till Mandai and Swargate during the Ganeshotsav.
Ridership would have gone up further if the service was started till Swargate," Bharat said. RIDERSHIP CHART Sept 17: 3.46L Sept 16: 1.
66L Sept 15: 2.25L Sept 14: 2.43L Sept 13: 1.
76L.
