28 December,2021 07:41 AM IST | Mumbai | Rajendra B. Aklekar
On December 20, 37.08 lakh passengers travelled on Central Railway and 28.82 lakh on Western Railway, reporting a total of 65.9 lakh passengers, the highest reported so far. File pic/Ashish Raje
While crowds on Mumbai local trains have remained more or less steady, the figures from Mondays during December show a sudden rise, sometimes reaching as high as 60 lakh, just 20 lakh less than the average pre-COVID era.
As per ticketing pattern in December, the number of commuters reached an average of 60 lakh on Mondays but it dipped to around 40-50 lakh for other days.
When asked about the reason behind this rise specifically on Mondays, railway officials said that Monday statistics are always a bit inflated due to consolidated figures. "If you check the very next day, the numbers drop significantly, but again if one totals up for the whole month, it all evens up. As per standard practice, Monday numbers are a collation of data with more season tickets leading to multiplications, hence the numbers are always inflated," a senior official said. While December 6, the first Monday of the month, was a public holiday, the other two Mondays - December 13 and December 20 - have shown a jump in figures as compared to other days, with the highest on December 20 on both suburban railways.
On December 13, there were 36.22 lakh passengers on Central Railway and 28 lakh on Western Railway, bringing the total to 64.2 lakh. On December 20, 37.08 lakh passengers travelled on Central Railway and 28.82 lakh on Western Railway, reporting a total of 65.9 lakh passengers, the highest reported so far.
Experts and passenger associations said the numbers dished out by railways are based on ticket sales which include monthly/quarterly pass figures too. "This means so many passengers have booked their tickets. They may be monthly, quarterly or weekly tickets and it is not necessary that these many people travel every single day, also a Monthly Season Ticket (MST) is taken as 30 journeys once the ticket is bought, irrespective of the fact whether a person travels or not," said Jitendra Gupta from Mumbai Transport Forum.
"People are travelling by local trains for sure. It is the best and fastest possible mode of transit in Mumbai. Peak hours are crowded every day. It will be difficult to say if the crowd is denser on a particular day as such," a regular commuter Rajan Venkat said.
65.9 lakh
No. of passengers on both WR and CR on Dec 20
