Chapter – 6 : Conclusion and Recommendations

CONCLUSION

Delhi metro is one of the most integral part of the transoirtation system of the Capital. The ridership of the Delhi metro is not adequate and should be increased to lower the traffic load from the Delhi roads and to prevent Delhi to be a car dependent state.

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine how principles of Transit Oriented Development (TOD) can help imporve the ridership of the Delhi metro.

As each year passes by, the ridership of Delhi Metro is substantially decreasing. The increase in the usage of automobile in the capital has resulted in the decrease of ridership of the Delhi Metro. The Delhi Metro has seen a decrease of around 20% in the ridership from January 2015 to December 2019.

From this study we learned about the factors influencing the ridership of the transit stations and these factors became the foundation for the Study areas, i.e, Density, Land Use, Pedestrian Accessibility to stations, Parking and the Establishments in the catchment.

By comparing and analyzing the three study areas, i.e, Green Park Metro Station, Seelampur Metro Station and Janakpuri West Metro Station on the basis of the principles of Transit Oriented Development (TOD) and the above mentioned parameters, we can clearly conclude that the Metro Station with the better mix of land use in the catchment area (500M) has more ridership. It is clear that the Metro station which show some resemblance to the factors affecting the ridership tends to have a higher ridership. Catchment of Green Park Metro Station has better land use mix than the other two stations, with proper pedestrian connectivity and less cheap parking, resulting in the highest ridership among the three Metro Stations.

Seelampur and Janakpuri West are lacking in some factors which affect the ridership, therfore having less ridership than expected. Change in the socio-economic profile and the decrease of activation of commercial places in the last few years have resulted in a low number of ridership in Janakpuri West Metro Station. Seelampur on the other hand have the lowest mix of commercial land use , thus resulting in a improper land use which do not generate an increase in ridership. Seelampur has a slightly higher ridership than Janakpuri West due to its high density and a very few people owning a car, thus using the Metro to travel .

This further answers the questions to the hypothesis, that: 1) Land use mix and establishments present in Green Park is suitable for increasing the ridership of Delhi Metro. The land use mix in Green Park is also not ideal but is suitable to increase the ridership. 2) Factors of low ridership are improper land use mix, low density, poor pedestrian connectivity and cheap parkinig.

The study clearly shows the affect of princples of Transit Oriented Development (TOD) on ridership.

RECOMMENDATIONS

It is understood from TOD principles that the best way to increase ridership is to increase residential density in the 500M catchment of the metro station. But however if there are obstacles to increase in residential density then providing businesses and establishments as seen in the case of Green Park Metro station may be provided. Parking policy with adequate parking prices, a better pedestrian connectivty and urban design elemts also contributes to the increase of ridership.

Thus, providing a similar kind of land use mix and establishments in the catchment of the Janakpuri West Metro Station and Seelampur Metro Station can help improve the ridership of these Metro stations. Activating the commercial spaces in Janakpuri West can help to increase the ridership as more passengers will use these spaces. Providing more commercial land use and activating the exsisting commercial spaces in Seelampur Metro station can increase the ridership of the station. Increasing the parking prices may also influence the people to use the transit instead of their own cars.