About 70,000 on Roadways Friday; Extra Trains 30-31

About 70,000 passengers moved through the Varanasi region’s Roadways depots on Friday, 28 August 2026, Raksha Bandhan, according to UPSRTC / Roadways counts compiled from Cantt, Kashi, Chandauli, Varanasi (rural), Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Sonbhadra and Vindhyanagar. Cantt stand alone handled 800-plus buses and 45,000-plus passengers, with women more than 60 percent of that stand. Extra bus trips were put on where crowds rose. The railways have added two extra trips of the Prayagraj Junction–Banaras–Subedarganj special 01915/01916 on 30 and 31 August.

Friday’s count is the story. The three-day free window for women and one companion was already in force. What Roadways has now put on the record is how many people actually travelled. The depot list and the extra-trip corridors sit with that count.

The about 70,000 is a region total, not a Cantt-only figure. The eight depots named with it are Cantt, Kashi, Chandauli, Varanasi (rural), Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Sonbhadra and Vindhyanagar. About stays about. It is not a ticket-by-ticket audit published to the last seat.

Cantt is the heavy stand inside that total. Eight hundred-plus buses ran. Passengers crossed 45,000. Women were over 60 percent of them. Those Cantt numbers sit together. They are not a second region total. Anyone adding 45,000-plus to the about 70,000 would double-count the stand that already sits inside the region figure.

E-buses at Cantt also ran above normal. Roadways put that extra work at about double capacity, and said the e-bus load was mostly women. About double is the phrasing on the count. It is not a published fleet-size table.

Extra trips were run on the corridors where the crowd thickened: Shaktinagar, Sonbhadra, Azamgarh, Ghazipur, Ballia, Mau, Gorakhpur and Lucknow. Those are the named extra-trip points. The count does not attach a bus-by-bus extra figure to each of them.

Women and one companion travelled free on Friday under the scheme already running. The Friday numbers are ridership, not a fresh concession order. Conductor practice and zero-rupee tickets belong to that earlier start. They are not re-announced here.

At Varanasi Cantt railway station, GRP Inspector Rajol Nagar led patrols on the platform, the foot overbridge, the waiting hall and the circulating area. RPF worked with that GRP deployment. The patrol note is a station-crowd watch on festival day, not a case list.

On the rail side, the Prayagraj Junction–Banaras–Subedarganj special numbered 01915/01916 is to run two extra trips on 30 August and 31 August. Those dates sit after the Roadways festival count. They are additional special-train trips, not a substitute for the bus extras already run on Friday.

Cantt’s 45,000-plus, with women over 60 percent of the stand, is why the bus extras and the station patrol show up in the same Friday file. The region’s about 70,000 is the wider depot net. Shaktinagar through Lucknow are where Roadways says the crowd required more trips.

The extra 01915/01916 trips on 30 and 31 August are the onward rail add-on after Friday’s buses. Cantt’s 45,000-plus remains the stand that carried the heavier share of the region’s about 70,000.