New Delhi, July 19 (IANS) Barring Delhi and Mumbai Line 1, most of the operational metros in cities including Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Chennai, Kolkata, and Kochi have lower ridership than is required for breakeven. The term breakeven refers to the amount of revenue required to cover the total fixed and variable expenses incurred by a firm within a specific period of time.
Taking note of the dis- mal performance of the majority of the metro rail networks in terms of carrying passengers enough to breakeven even after six to seven years of continuous operations, a Parliamentary Standing Committee observed that it is mainly because of faulty DPRs, lack of proper planning to provide first and last mile connectivity and a few other reasons. Bengaluru Metro had Actual Average Daily Ridership (AADR) of 1.48, 3.40, 4.52, 4.89 and
0.96 lakhs only in 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, and 2020-21, respectively, against Average Daily Ridership required for break-even of 7.65, 10.09, 12.32,13.19, and 18.54 lakhs, respectively, in the same years. Thus, Bengaluru metro has been constantly witnessing low ridership than it is required for breakeven. Similarly, Hyderabad Metro has very low Actual Average Daily Ridership — i.e. 0.67, 1.26, 2.76, and 0.65 lakhs only in 2017-18, 2018-19.
