Volume 14 | Issue 1 | January 2026

 Abstract

Metro rail systems are increasingly promoted as sustainable solutions for managing congestion, reducing pollution, and improving urban mobility efficiency in Indian cities. Despite extensive public investment and technically advanced infrastructure, many newly operational metro systems continue to experience ridership levels that are significantly lower than initial projections. This persistent gap highlights the limitations of infrastructure-led planning approaches that overlook behavioural, spatial, and environmental dimensions of everyday travel. This research examines low metro ridership in Indian cities through the concept of behavioural friction, defined as the cumulative spatial, psychological, climatic, and social resistance encountered by commuters during daily mobility. The study moves beyond traditional transport performance metrics by focusing on lived commuter experience, particularly during first- and last-mile access to metro stations. A mixed-method approach combining commuter perception surveys, spatial accessibility analysis, walkability audits, and qualitative behavioural assessment is adopted. A Behavioural Friction Index (BFI) is developed to evaluate station-level resistance to metro usage by integrating walkability quality, climatic comfort, safety perception, last-mile reliability, and surrounding land-use activity. Findings indicate that extreme thermal stress, fragmented pedestrian infrastructure, safety concerns, unreliable last-mile services, and entrenched twowheeler dependence significantly reduce the effective catchment area of metro stations. The paper concludes that metro performance in Indian cities depends less on engineering capacity and more on access comfort, behavioural acceptance, and spatial quality, advocating a shift toward behaviour-led, climate-responsive, and human-centric urban mobility planning.

Licence: creative commons attribution 4.0

  License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 and The Open Definition

 Keywords

Behavioural friction, metro ridership, urban mobility, walkability, climate stress, Indian cities

  License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 and The Open Definition