27-06-2025
Chennai: Longer waiting time to park or exit vehicles in Metro Rail stations
Parking vehicles in the morning or taking it out in the evening during peak hours, commuters endure a bit of a hassle in some of the Chennai Metro Rail stations.
Chennai Metro Rail network sprawls to 54 km currently handles nearly 2.8 lakh passengers on an average every day. A significant number of commuters resort to driving to the stations by two-wheelers or four wheelers and then hop onto the train due to absence of last mile connectivity options.
Recently, in a few stations including Koyambedu, Thirumangalam, Airport and Alandur, congestion near the parking was noticed and commuters had to wait in queue for a while entering or exiting the parking lot, thus causing inconvenience.
Manoharan Nambiar, a resident of Thirumangalam said, 'The payment machine in the parking lot takes a while to read the National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) for some commuters. As a result, there is bunching of vehicles which are either waiting to enter the station or exit in the evening during the peak hours. I have got caught in the queue on quite a few occasions and have had to wait to exit the Thirumangalam Metro Rail station parking lot in the evening. I hope the authorities provide additional machines to ease congestion.'
Also, for some of the commuters, when they exit, the time of entry doesn't reflect in the payment machine. For a few, though they have exited, the machine indicates that the vehicle still lies within the parking lot.
According to officials of Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL), the issue has been occurring recently, and they have already taken steps to resolve it. 'The payment device has a sim card with which there are data synchronisation issues. We have already raised with SBI and Airtel and it will be sorted out within a few days,' an official said.
Sources said, there is dearth of manpower to oversee the parking related issues and that CMRL should hire additional staff. This will help in addressing the issue quickly.
