From Mumbai suburban network to major trunk routes like Delhi-Howrah, the high-density network transports tonnes of freight daily. Indian Railways is one of the busiest train networks in the world, handling nearly 2.4 crore passengers every day. And now, the railways has released a list of 100 stations with the highest passenger footfall for the year 2023-24. Thane railway station is on top with 9.30 crore passengers annually, followed by Kalyan with 8.37 crore. Howrah is ranked third with 6.13 crore, while Mumbai CSMT and Sealdah recorded 5.16 crore and 5.13 crore passengers respectively in the year.
Mumbai and its surrounding areas account for several of the busiest stations. Several prominent stations from eastern, southern and northern India also feature prominently. Howrah and Sealdah ranked third and fifth respectively, while Vardhman was 20th, Gaya 49th and Bhubaneswar 31st. In the south, Tambaram ranked eighth, MGR Chennai Central 10th, KSR Bengaluru 12th, Chennai Egmore 18th and Tirupati 26th. Coimbatore, Mysuru, Ernakulam Junction, Madurai and Mangaluru also feature in the list.
Thane, Kalyan, Mumbai CSMT, Panvel and Dadar all feature in the top 10, highlighting the scale of daily suburban and long-distance rail travel in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Mumbai Central ranked 16th, with around 2.20 crore passengers. New Delhi railway station was the busiest station in the national capital region in that year, ranking seventh with 3.96 crore passenger footfall, according to the data. Hazrat Nizamuddin ranked 24th with around 1.45 crore, while Delhi Sarai Rohilla was 95th with around 52.21 lakh. Among northern stations, Kanpur Central ranked 27th with around 1.33 crore passengers, followed by Lucknow at 25th, Varanasi at 34th, Ghaziabad at 42nd and Prayagraj Junction at 51st. Several stations recorded more than one crore passengers during 2023-24, including Tirupati (1.37 crore), Kanpur Central (1.33 crore), Visakhapatnam (1.33 crore), Gorakhpur (1.30 crore), Thiruvananthapuram Central (1.27 crore), Bhubaneswar (1.22 crore), Anand Vihar Terminal (1.22 crore), Bhopal (1.20 crore), Varanasi (1.15 crore), Kozhikode (1.14 crore), Mathura Junction (1.03 crore), Coimbatore (1.02 crore), Nagpur (1.02 crore) and Bandra Junction (1.01 crore). The top 100 also include other stations such as Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Vijayawada, Patna Junction, Pune, Surat, Indore, Raipur, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Agra Cantt, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Haridwar, Solapur and Aurangabad. Ernakulam Town ranked 100th, recording around 50.13 lakh passenger footfall in 2023-24.
