India has transformed its urban mobility infrastructure in the past two decades, expanding from just two metro systems to a growing network of seventeen—with seven more on the horizon by 2030. This growing expansion shows India’s commitment to modernizing its urban infrastructure, a crucial step in alleviating traffic congestion and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from its transportation sector.
Despite this impressive progress, most metro systems have fallen short of their projected ridership levels. According to studies by WRI India and Delhi-based think tank The Infravision Foundation, many metro systems in India operate at less than 15% of their forecasted ridership, with some networks struggling to reach even 10%. The country’s largest, Delhi Metro, currently achieves approximately 47% of its ridership target—a figure that, while better than others, still highlights a gap between expectations and reality.
While these figures don’t necessarily imply that India’s metro system is unsuccessful, they do, nevertheless, highlight an important point: India’s large expenditure on developing world-class metro systems is not serving or benefiting as many people as initially imagined. To overcome the low ridership problem facing India’s metros, local and regional governments need to address affordability barriers, fragmented transit systems, and inadequate cycling and pedestrian infrastructure.
Integrated Fare System Will Enhance Affordability and Reduce Fragmentation
Affordability is a significant hurdle to the widespread use of metro systems in India. According to a 2019 study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), Delhi commuters spend 14% of their income on metro travel—almost two to three times more than commuters in cities like Paris and New York (Table 1).
Table 1: International Comparison of Income Spent on Metro Travel and Existence of Integrated System
This disparity underscores the need to implement affordability measures, especially as India’s urban population continues to grow, with 35-37% of the country living in cities by 2024. Delhi Metro has introduced a Smart Card offering a 10% discount on every journey and an additional 10% discount during off-peak hours. However, these measures do not sufficiently alleviate the financial burden for low-income commuters, who tend to spend 22% of their income on metro travel—far exceeding the global transit affordability benchmark of 10–15%.
India’s fragmented transit system also makes commuting more costly and time-consuming. New York, Paris, and London allow commuters limited-time transfers between buses, subways, and other transit modes without paying extra. By contrast, India’s urban transit modes—metros, buses, and auto-rickshaws—are run by separate organizations, each having its own independent fare systems, schedules, and management. This lack of integration discourages multi-modal transport usage, resulting in longer travel times and higher cumulative costs. To address India’s fragmented system, local transit agencies need to prioritize fare integration and implement free limited-time transfers between buses and trains.
Another strategy could be to adopt an annual transit pass, which would provide commuters with affordable unlimited access to public transportation. For instance, Vienna implemented a yearly transit pass priced at 365 Euros (roughly €1 per day), which led to increased public transport use and reduced car traffic. Similarly, Seoul provides discounted fares for frequent travelers and has implemented fare-capping, ensuring that commuters do not pay beyond a certain daily limit.
Given the pressing need to reduce GHG emissions, Indian cities should also consider introducing climate-focused transit passes, which incentivize commuters to use green transit options such as zero-emission buses, similar to Austria’s KlimaTicket or Seoul’s Climate Card. According to the International Transport Forum, these climate-focused passes provide affordable access to integrated public transport systems while explicitly incentivizing eco-friendly commuting (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Comparison of Two Climate Ticket Applications: Austria KlimaTicket and Seoul Climate Card
According to the OECD, Austria’s introduction of the KlimaTicket prompted 85% of users to replace driving with public transit, supporting the country’s aim to reduce private car use by 16% by 2040. Similarly, Seoul’s Climate Card initiative resulted in about 20,000 individuals opting for public transportation over personal vehicles, which is equivalent to removing approximately 11,000 cars from the roads daily and cutting 3,600 tons of GHG emissions in just two months.
Annual and climate-focused public transit passes offer a promising solution to Indian metro systems’ low ridership problem. Such initiatives would not only make metro travel more accessible and affordable to a broader population, but also support India’s efforts to reduce GHG emissions in the transportation sector.
Improving Last-Mile Mobility Through Enhanced Pedestrian and Cycling Infrastructure
A metro system’s effectiveness is heavily influenced by the surrounding urban infrastructure and transportation networks. Improving Metro Access in India, a 2023 working paper published by WRI India and the Toyota Mobility Foundation, highlights that poor first and last-mile connectivity to metro rail systems has significantly contributed to lower-than-expected ridership, leading to the underutilization of over US$25 billion in investments in the sector. The working paper also notes that Indian metro commuters, particularly women, are highly sensitive to first and last-mile wait times, often opting for more expensive alternatives and choosing ride-hailing services due to safety concerns.
Compounding the issue is the state of pedestrian infrastructure in urban India. Pedestrians, who account for 64% of all road deaths, must navigate environments that prioritize motor vehicles. This highlights a broader paradox in Indian infrastructure: While significant amounts are invested in state-of-the-art systems such as metros and airport terminals, essential urban amenities such as pedestrian pathways and public buses—critical to feeding traffic into these systems—remain neglected and underdeveloped.
With the approval of an additional 1,032 km of metro rail network and a planned expansion to twenty-seven cities, Indian urban developers must prioritize delivering high-frequency, low-cost shared services and investing in pedestrian infrastructure near metro stations to ensure transit investments effectively serve the local population. According to a survey conducted by WRI India and the Toyota Mobility Foundation, walking and shared modes contributed to over 74% of last-mile trips in Delhi, Nagpur, and Bengaluru, underscoring the urgent need for improved pedestrian pathways and better-aligned shared transit options to support the growing metro infrastructure (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Last-Mile Mode Shares
Bogotá and Singapore have successfully integrated bus, cycling, and pedestrian infrastructure to complement their public transit systems. These examples provide valuable lessons for India’s metro expansion efforts. Bogotá has developed an extensive network consisting of pedestrian pathways and 593 km of bike lanes to make it easier for residents to access TransMilenio stations without relying on motorized transport.
Figure 3: Map of Bogotá‘s Bicycle Lanes, 2022
As a result of these measures, bicycle ridership grew by 40% over four years, with cycling now comprising approximately 8% of all trips and serving as a “feeder” into the main TransMilenio system.
Closer to India, Singapore has prioritized Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs) and taken steps to integrate cycling infrastructure into its Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system to improve last-mile connectivity. The city-state aims to expand its existing 525 km of cycling paths to 1,300 km, connecting residential areas to MRT stations, by 2030. Moreover, Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) allocated 27,000 bicycle parking spaces at MRT stations to facilitate transitions between cycling and metro travel with the goal of ensuring that nine in ten peak-hour commutes to the city are completed in under 45 minutes, with trips to the nearest neighborhood center taking less than 20 minutes.
In light of the challenges to India’s metro systems and the successful steps taken by other countries, India needs to start investing more in pedestrian-friendly infrastructure, dedicated cycling lanes, and affordable last-mile connectivity solutions. These initiatives will ensure that the nation’s metro systems are not only accessible, but also better utilized by the public, thus maximizing their potential and impact in the years ahead.
