After criticism, CSE clarifies on Delhi Metro study

New Delhi: The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), in a response to Delhi Metro’s comments on the think tank’s study that DMRC is the second most unaffordable service in the world among nine global cities, said that it was not only about the trip cost but the total journey cost incurred by commuters, who because of poor integration of different systems end up paying a lot.

The CSE, in a recent study, claimed that after the fare hike last year, the Delhi Metro has become the second-most unaffordable service in the world among the cities that charge less than a US dollar for a 10-km trip. The report drew criticism by the DMRC and Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri, who termed it as “misleading and falsifying facts”.

The CSE, in its response, said that while the DMRC has calculated the cost of only Metro trips, CSE has computed the overall daily commuting cost of travel by different modes as well as combined modes including the Metro — the expenditure an individual makes while using different systems in Delhi, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.

“This also includes the cost for accessing a system. Journey for most residents of these cities is not only about two Metro trips a day, but also includes interchanges and the additional cost that commuters incur to access public transport systems. The DMRC has not accounted for that,” it said. It also said that in most of these cities, there is no interchange (changing modes during journey) penalty for journey costs, with the second trip being free on another mode once the fare has already been paid to a system.

Their policy recognises the value of journey cost and does not penalise the passenger for doing an interchange to reach the destination. In response to the DMRC’s objections to this selection of the nine cities and suggestion to look at other cities with large metro networks, the CSE said it used the same UBS data to examine the percentage of income spent on rail-based systems in some of these cities. It has found that other cities with larger networks - even in developed countries - are still far more affordable than Delhi. The other cities considered in the report were - Buenos Aires, Cairo, Hanoi, Jakarta, Kiev, Manila, Mexico City, and Mumbai.

“In Delhi, the percentage of income required to use the Metro system stands at 14 per cent. Compared to this, it is 2.9 per cent in Hong Kong, 6.6 per cent in Paris, 5.3 per cent in Beijing, 5.2 per cent in Seoul, 5.7 per cent in Shanghai, and 4.6 per cent in New York. Even London is marginally better than Delhi with the affordability of Metro at 13.4 per cent. Thus, the DMRC’s argument about Delhi being more affordable than cities with large Metro networks does not hold much ground,” it said.