Good news: Services resume on old routes as MTC gets 56 new buses

CHENNAI: BUS passengers have much to rejoice. With the Metropolitan Transport Corporation receiving 56 brand new buses, officials are looking to reintroduce services on some of the old routes, which had become defunct over the last few years. CM Edappadi K Palaniswami flagged off 555 new buses from the Secretariat on Monday, of which 56 belong to MTC.

Services on the much-sought-after routes -- especially those connecting south-western suburbs with north Chennai -- have resumed after a gap of several months, such as the 21G between Broadway and Tambaram, and E18 between Broadway and Guduvanchery. “Since 80 per cent of the fleet was ‘over-aged’, MTC was forced to withdraw services on many long routes,” said official sources. “Now, the Corporation has begun restoring services on routes having high demand.”

The MTC, which claims of a fleet capacity of 3,600 vehicles, caters to 33 lakh commuters in the city and parts of Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts. The buses are operated on 833 routes from 33 depots. Till January 2018, MTC buses on an average covered 260 km and ferried 1,200 commuters on a daily basis. However, after the fare hike in January last year, the passenger count fell sharply from 46 lakh to 33 lakh a day. MTC had also cut its fleet by 15-20 per cent due to shortage of buses.

Built as per new code

The new buses flagged off today are built as per AIS 052 code, a uniform standard code for building buses introduced by the Automotive Research Association Of India (ARAI), which assures additional safety features. The Union government has amended the Central Motor Vehicle Order (Accreditation of Bus Body Builders) making it mandatory that new buses be built as per the ASI 052 code in 2012, and the same came into effect in August, 2015.

While the private companies introduced the buses built as per new code in 2017, the first batch of government buses hit the roads only in July, 2018, that too mostly on mofussil routes.

Fully loaded

Total seats reduced from 48 to 41
Two seats near rear stairs removed to increase door width
The number of seats in the last row reduced from six to five
Five seats adjacent to the driver also reduced to three
Public announcement system
Amplifier with panic buttons
Stick holding ring and bell for disabled
LED route board