Noida Metro body may launch 250 feeder buses for last mile connectivity

The Noida Metro Rail Corporation (NMRC) will soon introduce feeder buses to connect the new Metro stations with other parts of the city in order to provide last mile connectivity to residents.

On August 20, the NMRC started trial runs on the entire 29.71km Noida-Greater Noida Metro link that is expected to become operational in October this year. The Metro link is estimated to have a ridership of 1.2 lakh a day, which could rise to 4 lakh by 2031.

The Uttar Pradesh state road transport corporation (UPSRTC) has been asked to submit a survey report regarding the routes, network, number of buses required, estimated footfall at all stations and other related information for a viable feeder system.

The report will be ready within a week and will suggest introducing 250 feeder buses at the stations where footfall is expected to be high. The feeders will be introduced in phases, beginning with areas where the demand is highest.

“Once the report is ready, we will work out viability and start the tendering process. The final implementation will take some time; but we want to start working on the last mile solution as that is a major gap as of now,” PD Upadhyay, executive director, NMRC, said.

Officials said that some of the areas in the city where demand is high include Pari Chowk, sectors 142, 81, 83, 71, 81, 137 and the entire stretch between Sector 62 and Noida City Centre. The Metro stations that are likely to have a high footfall include Sector 50 because of high density of residential and commercial areas and malls, Sector 81 because of the large number of office spaces, and Sector 137 because it is another high-density residential area.

Peak hours have been identified as 6am to 11am and 4pm to 9pm. The network and frequency of feeder buses will depend on the peak hour demand.

Officials said that they wanted the feeder system to be different from the existing city bus service as it will serve a different purpose and will cater to the current demand.

“The city bus service mostly connects areas between Noida and Greater Noida, for which we will now have the Metro. The problem now will be the distance from the Metro to homes or offices. For this, we need smaller feeder buses that will penetrate the city, connecting smaller distances from the Metro stations,” Upadhyay said.

He added that the city bus service had quite a viability gap and the generated revenue was not able to match the operation and maintenance cost. However, it had to be continued in public interest. With the feeder bus service, the NMRC expects to reduce the gap by careful route selection (i.e. where demand is higher).