Thiruvananthapuram-Mangaluru Vande Bharat becomes India's busiest route, Malayali passengers drive record occupancy

NEW DELHI: The Thiruvananthapuram-Mangaluru Vande Bharat Express has emerged as the busiest Vande Bharat route in the country. According to the latest railway figures, the occupancy rate on this route is 189.35%. The return service from Mangaluru to Thiruvananthapuram recorded an occupancy of 174.77%. The Kerala route achieved this milestone when the average occupancy of other Vande Bharat chair car trains across the country stood at 99.10%.

Occupancy is calculated based on how many passengers travel in a single seat during a journey. For example, if a passenger books a ticket from Thiruvananthapuram and gets down at Kollam, another passenger books a ticket from there to Kozhikode for the same seat. In this way, it is counted that two people travelled in a single seat, helping determine the occupancy rate. An occupancy rate of 189.35 per cent means that the number of passengers travelling on the service is nearly 1.9 times its total seating capacity.

The Thiruvananthapuram-Mangaluru service has also topped the revenue charts. In the 2025–26 financial year, the total revenue from Vande Bharat trains in Kerala rose to Rs 249.65 crore. Among them, the Thiruvananthapuram-Mangaluru Vande Bharat earned Rs 62.20 crore, while the Mangaluru-Thiruvananthapuram return service generated Rs 59.10 crore (compared to Rs 30.71 crore in the previous financial year). This achievement by Kerala has surpassed major routes in North India.