Varun Roy frequently drives from his residence in Pozhichalur, leaves his bike at the Airport Parking Lot created by Chennai Metro Rail at Pallavaram, takes the shuttle vehicle to the Chennai Airport Metro Rail station and finally boards the train to Thousand Lights. While the train ride takes nearly half hour, the drive from the parking lot to the Airport station should ideally be a 5-10 minute ride. But on many occasions, the drive between the parking lot and the station takes as much as the train ride.
“I face this issue particularly in the evening rush hours. We keep waiting for shuttle vehicles for a while and then get caught in the traffic as well for this short ride. Chennai Metro Rail should deploy a few more vehicles failing which commuters will continue to suffer,” he added.
Thousands of people from southern suburbs like Tambaram, Pozhichalur, Chitlapakkam and Chromepet opt to commute to the central business district or the northern suburbs via Chennai Metro Rail system as they can skip congestion on road at least for a substantial distance. Majority of them drive from their residences in these areas but the Airport Metro Rail station’s parking lot doesn’t have the capacity to accommodate as many vehicles and would get fully occupied in a jiffy. This forced Chennai Metro Rail to open a new bigger parking lot in Pallavaram. Shuttle services too began to transport passengers between this parking lot in Pallavaram and the Airport Metro Rail station. But the number of shuttle vehicles are grossly insufficient during the peak hours and commuters say they end up wasting quite a lot of time to get dropped to the station on many occasions.
V. Govindarajan, a resident of Tambaram said, it is not enough if the metro services alone are punctual and that these shuttle services also should be operated every five minutes according to a timetable. “One morning, I had an important meeting to attend and had to travel to the Government Estate. I waited for the feeder vehicle for almost 15 minutes as it was caught in the peak hour traffic. By the time the vehicle came, picked us up and dropped us off at the station entrance, it was another 10 minutes. I got delayed by half hour for an important meeting causing me a lot of inconvenience. When the authorities can invest in having such a huge parking lot, why can’t they spend a little more and procure more vehicles?” he asked.
According to Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL), there are two shuttle vehicles ferrying passengers now and they will consider adding more vehicles based on the demand.
Published – July 02, 2025 12:57 am IST
