Chennai Metro to Add 28 Six-Car Trains by 2028 to Beat Peak-Hour Rush

To address growing crowding on the Blue (Airport–Wimco Nagar) and Green (Chennai Central–St Thomas Mount) lines, CMRL has floated tenders to procure 28 six-car trainsets — a move that will sharply increase capacity during peak hours.

Current four-car metro trains carry around 1,200 passengers, while six-car trains will be able to move up to 1,800 passengers at a time. With the new fleet added to the existing 52 trainsets, wait times could drop to as little as four minutes on major corridors.

All stations along the Blue and Green lines are already designed to handle six-car trains. Platform upgrades — including full platform screen doors at underground stations — will be completed in phases without affecting normal metro operations.

The new fleet will be built from the ground up in India, with at least 60% of cost invested domestically in materials, equipment and manpower — aligning with the Make-in-India mandate and boosting local manufacturing capacity.

The upcoming six-car trains will feature Grade of Automation 4 (GoA4) — fully driverless capability — though CMRL will begin operations manually before shifting to automation as adoption stabilises. The upgrade aligns Chennai with global metro systems in Dubai, Singapore and Paris.

Chennai Metro Rail Ltd (CMRL) closed November 2025 with 92.86 lakh passengers, reinforcing the system’s rise as one of India’s fastest-growing urban transit networks. The numbers reflect continued adoption of the metro over private road travel amid Chennai’s expanding workforce and growing suburban footprint.

November 10 registered a record 3.6 lakh riders in a single day, indicating a sharp rise in weekday peak-time traffic — particularly on office corridors connecting Central Chennai with the airport and manufacturing hubs.

Driven by commuter preference for seamless cashless travel, 48.48 lakh trips were made using the NCMC Singara Chennai Card, making it the most-used payment option. Digital adoption reflects strong acceptance of frictionless transit across age groups and office-goers.

Single-journey paper QR tickets saw 18.47 lakh trips, while ONDC, WhatsApp, Paytm, and PhonePe together logged over 21 lakh online QR transactions, showing that more than one-third of Chennai Metro passengers now prefer mobile ticketing over station counters.

CMRL confirmed that the 20% fare discount will remain available on all digital QR options and NCMC cards (excluding paper QR bought at counters), helping reduce fare costs for regular travellers and encouraging a shift away from queues at stations.