Chennai Mass Rapid Transit System

The Chennai Mass Rapid Transit System, a state-owned subsidiary of Indian Railways, is a metropolitan elevated railway line operated by Southern Railway (India). It is the first elevated railway line in India. Although it is segregated from the Chennai Suburban Railway, they both are operated by Southern Railway and are integrated in a wider rapid transit network. Built at a cost of 11,710 million, the line currently runs within the city limits from Chennai Beach to Velachery, covering a distance of 19.34 km (12.02 mi) with 17 stations, with an average daily ridership of 76,800 passengers.

Opened in 1995 and extended twice in 2004 and 2007, the system's poor connectivity with other transit modes have had an impact on its ridership, drawing much criticism to its cost-effectiveness. The Chennai Metro project, currently under construction, is expected to improve transit access in the city and will connect with the Chennai MRTS. To maximise its potential, the MRTS is currently being extended to St. Thomas Mount, and its operations may be transferred over to the Chennai Metro when it opens in 2015.

Read more about Chennai Mass Rapid Transit System:  Fares and Ticketing, Rolling Stock, Criticism, Trivia

Famous quotes containing the words mass, rapid, transit and/or system:

    All great art, and today all great artlessness, must appear extreme to the mass of men, as we know them today. It springs from the anguish of great souls. From the souls of men not formed, but deformed in factories whose inspiration is pelf.
    Alexander Trocchi (1925–1983)

    In clear weather the laziest may look across the Bay as far as Plymouth at a glance, or over the Atlantic as far as human vision reaches, merely raising his eyelids; or if he is too lazy to look after all, he can hardly help hearing the ceaseless dash and roar of the breakers. The restless ocean may at any moment cast up a whale or a wrecked vessel at your feet. All the reporters in the world, the most rapid stenographers, could not report the news it brings.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    We only seem to learn from Life that Life doesn’t matter so much as it seemed to do—it’s not so burningly important, after all, what happens. We crawl, like blinking sea-creatures, out of the Ocean onto a spur of rock, we creep over the promontory bewildered and dazzled and hurting ourselves, then we drop in the ocean on the other side: and the little transit doesn’t matter so much.
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    A person, seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity: while the haughty Dogmatist, persuaded that he can erect a compleat system of Theology by the mere help of philosophy, disdains any further aid, and rejects this adventitious instructor.
    David Hume (1711–1776)