Impact of Fare Change on the Travellers and Management of Orange Line Metro Train, Lahore

Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT) started working in October 2020 with a flat fare system. The fare system was changed just after a couple of years to a distance-based fare system. Based on the data obtained from the Punjab Mass-transit Authority (PMA), and interviews with the passengers, this paper investigates how the users and the management of OLMT were affected by the fare change. Analysis reveals that the most noticeable change was the sudden increase in the average number of users per day, from 1,15,000 to 1,70,000. With the increase in the number of average daily users, the average revenue also increased from Rs. 4.6 million to around Rs. 5.1 million per day. Secondly, users were also facing a lot of problems like they had to stand in the long lines to buy tokens, and due to some technical issues, token machines were also not working most of the time. This was increasing their overall travel time. New ways of selling tokens/tickets, increasing revenue collection, and better service management have been suggested.