If no new buses are added to the DTC’s fleet in the near future, almost its entire existing fleet of buseswill get phased out by the year 2025, says a report prepared by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
According to the report, the daily average ridership of the public transporter has declined by 36% in four years — dipping from 47 lakh in 2012-13 to 30 lakh by the end of 2016.
The report, which is based on data available till November 2016, claims that the ridership figure of 30 lakh is also an “overestimation”. According to the latest available DTC statistics, about 30 lakh passengers travel on its buses daily. Of them, only 14 lakh or 45% are ticketed passengers. The rest 16 lakh or 55% use passes.
It is “officially assumed” that each pass holder makes an “absurdly high” nine trips per day, the report states. “Thus, a pass holder is counted as travelling nine times during the course of a single day and that inflates the daily trip number. It is possible, therefore, that the DTC’s daily ridership is less than the currently stated 30-lakh figure,” it says.
No new bus in 5 years
The DTC last bought new buses in 2011-12. “If no new buses are added now, the entire fleet will get nearly phased out by 2025,” says the report.
“This is unacceptable, especially at a time when travel demand and pollution problems are exploding in the city. If this is not acknowledged and resolved immediately, it will make the problem of pollution and congestion irreversible,” said Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of the CSE.
The DTC is currently operating 3,800 buses while Delhi Integrated Multi Modal System (DIMTS) runs around 1,600 buses under the Cluster Scheme. “There is a shortage of 5,000-10,000 buses based on various estimates and judicial mandates,” the report says.
The report has also found fault with fleet utilisation by the DTC. “DTC’s fleet utilisation has gone down from 85.51% in 2013-14 to 83.63% in 2015-16. It is significantly lower compared to other cities such as Bengaluru (91%) and Hyderabad (99%).”
The Delhi government has started the process of procuring 1,000 buses each for the DTC and the cluster scheme. According to the report, the procurement needs to be undertaken “on a war footing to meet the target of 10,000-11,000 buses”.