Andheri station maintained its position as Western Railway's (WR) most crowded and busiest suburban station with ticket sales showing that the station accounted for about 9 per cent of all tickets sold on WR's suburban system. During the financial year that ended on March 31, Andheri station saw sales of a whopping Rs 2.41 crore tickets and 8.90 lakh season passes. A total of 9.96 crore passengers started their journeys from the station-called originating passengers in railway lingo- and the station added Rs 59.50 crore to the coffers of WR.
Officials said that the start of the Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar (VAG) metro has played its part in these robust numbers as a huge number of people who travelled all the way from the northern suburb stations to board the metro to reach Ghatkopar are making the switch at Andheri station.
Recent ridership figures released by metro operator Mumbai Metro One (MMOPL) showed that the daily ridership at Andheri for the month of February reached 72,125 per day. This makes Andheri the second biggest station on the VAG corridor after Ghatkopar with a daily ridership of 94,053.
"Obviously a major part of VAG metro riders are also using Andheri station and that is also feeding the numbers," said an official.
The fact that Andheri also has a connection to Harbour line is also a factor in its numero uno status on the WR line, agreed officials,
Overall WR's suburban system sold 27.03 crore tickets between April 1, 2016 and March 31, 2017. It sold 1.37 crore season passes during the same period.
WR's local trains carried a whopping 127.94 crore passengers. This is more than the population of India which as per the 2011 Census stands at 121.01 crores. WR earned Rs 818.48 crore from its suburban passenger operations.
