Extending Public Transport in India’s Millennium City
From the front entrance of Sikanderpur Metro Station, one can spot travelers from all directions approaching the station. Some are on foot, while others prefer to make the journey on autorickshaw, two-wheeler, minibus, taxi or Uber. The station is a nerve center of multimodal transportation in Gurugram, the financial and industrial hub just south of New Delhi — and for travelers coming from India’s capital city on the Delhi Metro, Sikanderpur Station also serves as the transfer point between the Metro and Gurugram’s intra-city elevated light rail system.
PUSHING BOUNDARIES
In the spring of 2017, a new light-rail line was opened connecting the Sikanderpur station with the area in Gurugram to the south. The map below shows the Delhi Metro system (in black), with Phase I of Rapid MetroRail Gurugram shown in blue (which opened in 2013), and the the Phase II expansion shown in grey.
In an area where rapid mass transport had historically been absent, this expansion finally brought access to convenient and efficient public transportation within reach.
SIGNAL, RECEIVED
The opening of the terminus station also provided us with a useful natural experiment through which we can study how people use ridesharing to access the new Rapid MetroRail line. Unlike many metro stations, the Sector 55–56 station is isolated from commercial attractions. This allows us to clearly examine the activity before and after the opening of the new line without the noise of trips to businesses in the station’s vicinity.
When we look at Uber drop-offs around the station in the days following the station opening, a stark pattern emerges. Before the station opened, dropoffs near the station were sparse. After the opening of the station the number of dropoffs grew to be more than 8 times the daily average in the period preceding, with a noticeable weekday — weekend pattern.
This pattern is consistent with what we have observed in LA and London — riders in New Delhi and surrounding areas are using a combination of Uber and the new Metro line to complete the first legs of their journeys.
NEW CONNECTIONS
To better understand where those journeys originated, however, we had to turn back to our data.
The red areas on the map above are where the most trips that ended at the Sector 55–56 Station originated in the month after the station opened. Riders who get dropped off at the terminus station are in large part coming from neighborhoods to the west. This part of Gurugram is a mix of residential apartment complexes, retail, schools, and parks.
And given this mix of land uses, it’s not surprising that the most popular time to take an Uber from this area to the Phase II line is on weekdays during peak morning commute hours.
NEXT STOP
These trends have far-reaching implications, and we’re keen to learn more. We’ll continue to investigate how ridesharing can better complement existing public transport services, and we hope to better understand how the combination of Uber and public transit will shape the cities of our future. We want to help cities strategically invest in mobility and transportation infrastructure improvements, and we are looking for new ways to engage and collaborate even more effectively.
As for Gurugram, we’ll continue to examine the interconnectivity between ridesharing and public transport as Phase III of their Rapid MetroRail project progresses. Stay tuned for more.
