Only 30 lakh commuters use Mumbai local trains daily

Railway officials said they have specific instructions to only issue monthly season tickets for now. File pics/Ashish Raje

Less than half of pre-COVID commuters, that is 30 lakh on a daily average, now travel on Mumbai's local trains, and less than 5 lakh monthly passes have been issued to fully vaccinated people. In pre-COVID times on average, the daily passengers were 80 lakh.

As per the latest statistics on both Central and Western Railway, about 4.94 lakh monthly passes have been issued so far to fully vaccinated commuters between August 11 and August 31.

On both the railways, the highest sale of monthly season tickets was on August 16 with about 27,204 on Central Railway and 11,876 on Western Railway in one day, with Dombivli and Borivli remaining the top stations.

While 3.58 lakh Central Railway commuters were issued the monthly season pass, the number on Western Railway was 1.36 lakh for the monthly season pass. Official data reveals that while 19 lakh passengers travelled daily on average on CR, about 11 lakh travelled on Western Railway, taking the daily average commuters on Mumbai local trains to 30 lakh.

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Commuter organisations have said that the numbers will not rise till railways begin selling single journey tickets or at least the resume operations of Main line EMU trains, that is those plying between MMR townships of Panvel, Diva and Vasai. Railway officials said they have been strictly following the Maharashtra government's guidelines, and that they have specific instructions to only issue monthly season tickets for now.

With the Universal Travel Ticket software in place, the crowds at booths at the stations have now almost vanished and the booths, too, partially dismantled at many stations.

80 lakh
No. of daily average commuters on local trains before the pandemic