On just the second day of Mumbai Metro Aqua Line 3’s operations in south Mumbai, early signs of its impact on the city’s bus services were already visible. Fresh figures from the passenger and earnings survey carried out by BEST across Colaba and Backbay depots on Saturday morning revealed a dip in bus ridership on multiple routes that directly overlap with the underground corridor.

The data, compiled on October 8 and 9, shows that bus routes connecting to key new Metro stations such as Vidhan Bhavan, Churchgate, CST, Cuffe Parade, and Girgaon have begun to register fewer passengers compared to a day earlier. At Backbay depot, buses carried 79,596 passengers on October 8, which slipped to 79,373 on October 9, a marginal drop of 223 commuters.