Madrid Metro breaks COVID-19 ridership record in June

The Regional Government of Madrid counted in excess of 37.7 million journeys in the Madrid Metro in June, the highest monthly figure recorded since the start of the COVID-19 restrictions imposed in March 2020. This figure for journeys amounts to 63.7 per cent of the recovery in demand on the figure back in June 2019.

The figures show that the trend in the rise in the number of journeys is growing, also taking into account that the metro is the preferred and most-used mode of transport for the people of Madrid. In fact, in the first half of 2021, Metro de Madrid registered 10 per cent more journeys than those recorded in the same period of 2020, bearing in mind the health situation did not deteriorate until March last year.

The average daily figure for the first few weeks of June was relatively high, amounting, for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic, to 1.4 million daily journeys. This figure is probably recorded as a result of the end of the state of emergency, which particularly saw a rise in the number of journeys recorded at night. In 2019, there were 2.2 million journeys a day, while this figure stood at a little over 830,000 in 2020.

The figures are still far from those recorded before the coronavirus, but if this trend continues in line with the forecasts, Metro says it would see 2021 close with some 451 million passengers, still well below the figure for 2019, a year that recorded more than 677 million passengers, which made it the third-highest year for demand in the over 100-year history of the Madrid underground.

The pandemic led to an unprecedented decline in demand by metro passengers, falling to levels seen 30 years ago, with a loss of 328 million journeys on the figure for 2019. 2020 closed with a drop of close to 50 per cent on the previous year, with 349.8 million passengers, compared with 677.4 million in 2019.