Kerala: Over 7,000 people ride on Kochi Water Metro on its second day

The second day of the Kochi Water Metro a first in the country on Thursday witnessed a ridership of over 7000 passengers on its two operational routesThe ambitious project of the Kerala government was inaugurated on April 25 by Prime Minister Narendra ModiOn April 26 when Kochi Water Metro began commercial operations on a single route from Kerala High Court to Vypin it received an overwhelming response with 6559 passengers travelling on itOn the next day it began operations on a second route from Vytilla to KakkanadAlso Read Three of family found dead police suspect man died by suicide after killing wife mentally ill son in KeralaThe total ridership on the second day on both routes was 7039 Kochi Water Metro Ltd KWML said in a statementAs last mile connectivity is given employees could now prefer Water Metro for their travel to work They could enjoy the comfort of the Water Metro enjoy the scenic beauty and reach their workplace with a refreshed mind Infopark CEO Sushanth Kurunthil who travelled on the VytillaKakkanad route is quoted as having said in the statementFeeder autos and KSRTC feeder buses were deployed from Kakkanad Water Metro Terminal to Infopark KWML saidThe boats are operated on this route during peak hours from 8 AM to 11 AM and from 4 PM to 7 PM with 3 trips each in the morning and evening halves it saidThe ticket rate on the VytillaKakkanad route is Rs 30 while on the High CourtVypin route it is Rs 20On the High CourtVypin route boats are operated every 15 minutes from 7 AM to 8 PMThe flagship water metro project of the Left Front government set up at a cost of Rs 113683 crore in the port city will connect 10 islands using 78 electric boats and 38 terminals once fully operationalInitially 15 electric airconditioned catamaran boats will ferry city residents across eight water routes There are 15 proposed water routesThe ecofriendly vessels are also disabledfriendly and can ferry up to 100 people each across the proposed 76kmlong routes at a speed of eight to ten knotsThe vessels which won the Gussies International Electric Boat awards of 2022 are fitted with the most advanced and safest battery technology capable of supercharging in 15 to 20 minutes lifesaving equipment and technology to prevent overcrowdingBesides that they have an automatic boat location tracking system night navigation equipment panoramic windows which provide a visual treat of the scenic Kochi backwaters and are solar poweredThe hulls are made of recyclable aluminium alloy and the engines produce near to zero sound emissions and vibration while runningThe terminals are built with stateoftheart facilities and the jetties have floating pontoons with automatic docking system technology The Water Metro is expected to ferry 34000 passengers every day when fully operationalThe integrated ticketing system allows passengers seamless travel on water metro and metro rail using the Kochi One card and for the future KMRL plans to make the smart card usable for travel on feeder buses and autorickshaws as wellThe Kochi Water Metro service is fully funded by the Kerala government and KfW a German funding agencyThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever