Patliputra express is mostly for intermediate passengers. Its a good overnight train to dhanbad, Jasidih from Ranchi. It runs almost full in the entire route in unreserved coaches and 70-75% full in reserved coaches in different legs of the journey. I mean to say it runs full from hatia/ranchi to dhanbad , jasidih. There people get down but again it is full by the morning comuters to patna. Indeed the speed of this train is slow but it has good timeings ( for intermediate stations). Though I haven't gone ever beyond Luckeeesarai but till luckeesarai and while the train departs luckeesarai I have hardly seen this train having less patronage. Indeed a good connectivity to stations like Dhanbad, Jasidih, Jamui, Kiul, Barh.