Delhi Metro to add 200 new coaches to combat rush during peak hours

The Delhi Metro will add 200 new coaches to its existing fleet of trains plying on the Yellow, Blue, and Red Lines to augment its carrying capacity.

New Delhi: The Delhi Metro will add 200 new coaches to its existing fleet of trains plying on the Yellow, Blue, and Red Lines to accommodate more people and reduce the rush — particularly during peak hours.

In an interview with Times of India, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation's (DMRC) managing director Mangu Singh said, "We have been adding coaches and in another four to five months' time, we will add about 200 new coaches in the network."

He said that thanks to the new coaches, all new trains that are going to be introduced in the Yellow (Samaypur Badli-HUDA City Centre) and Blue Line (Dwarka Sector 21-Vaishali/Noida City Centre) will be of eight-coach configuration.

"In Red Line (Rithala-Dilshad Garden) all fresh trains will have six coaches as the traffic there is less," he said.

The 50-km-long Blue Line, which connects Noida City Centre and east Delhi's Vaishali to the Dwarka sub-city, is the largest operational corridor of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation.

The Delhi Metro currently operates with a fleet of 227 train sets comprising of 128 six coach, 58 eight coach and 41 four coach trains across all its corridors.

A total of 71 trains operate on the Blue Line, 60 trains run on the Yellow Line and 29 trains operate on the Red Line. These three lines together carry over 25 lakh passengers every day.

The average daily ridership of the metro in June was 25.7 lakh. The corresponding period last year, when newer sections were yet to be launched, had seen 27.2 lakh people using the network everyday, the DMRC said.

The total ridership came down by around 15 lakh and 21 lakh in the Yellow and Blue Lines in June, as compared to the same period the previous year. In April, 27.5 lakh commuters took the metro on an average daily, while the figure came down to around 26.5 lakh in May, when schools are closed due to summer holidays.