New parking lot opened for Chennai Metro Rail commuters near airport station

Chennai Metro Rail opens new parking area near airport station to address commuter needs, with shuttle service available.

To address the growing needs of those travelling from the southern parts of the city, Chennai Metro Rail has opened a new parking area near the Chennai airport station.

Though there is a parking lot within the Chennai airport Metro Rail station premises, commuters have time and again reiterated that it is insufficient. The station witnesses nearly 15,000-16,000 passengers every day and a large section of the commuters come from locations including Tambaram, Chromepet, Chitlapakkam and Pallavaram.

Officials of Chennai Metro Rail Limited said a massive parking lot near Pallavaram about 700 metres from the Chennai airport Metro Rail station had been opened. A shuttle service to take commuters from the parking area to the station would be operated.

“The existing parking lot within the station premises can handle only about 450 vehicles and it gets filled up quickly. Passengers have been finding it difficult to use this station because the parking gets entirely occupied too soon, forcing them to head to OTA-Nanganallur or Meenambakkam stations. Hence a decision was taken to have another parking lot. But unfortunately, since there is no additional space available within the airport premises itself, we had to use one near Pallavaram,” an official said.

The new parking area can accommodate nearly 700 vehicles, both two-wheelers and cars. Two shuttle services are operating now to transfer passengers to the station. Officials said they would add more shuttle service vehicles when the demand increases.

Balaji A, a resident of Kundrathur and a regular traveller in Chennai Metro Rail system said, “It is a good initiative to have an additional parking area but this will be beneficial to commuters only if the shuttle service is operated every five minutes during the peak hours.”