Accordingly Chennai’s suburban rail network that connects Chennai with places like Tambaram, Arakkonam and Tiruvallur has lost around 18 lakh in April 2019. Meanwhile a statistical report from Southern Railways said that the network has lost around 60,000 commuters a day in April 2019.
Furthermore the number of commuters in suburban network is 30.8 million in April 2019 and 34.3 million in March 2019 as against the corresponding figures of 32 million and 33.2 million for April and March 2018 respectively. Reportedly this steep fall in patronage could be due to the migration of commuters to the Chennai Metro Rail network whose Airport-Washermanpet line runs parallel to the Tambaram-Chennai Beach-Tiruvallur suburban lines. Chennai Metro rail now has a patronage of around 90,000 commuters everyday, which translates into 30 lakh users a month.
Moreover Chennai metro rail’s air-conditioned rakes and connectivity to populous localities in Chennai like Anna Nagar could be a possible reason for the migration, the officials claim.
