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Small buses run as regular services by MTC in Chennai, commuters confused
Posted on: 29/Nov/2019 9:49:45 AM
Metropolitan Transport Corporation or MTC has silently converted small buses into regular services in Chennai. This has increased the confusion among the passengers. It is known that in Chennai with the huge population there is more demand for the small buses.
It must be noted that at the Mandeveli bus depot small buses were operated along with route number 21(connecting Broadway with Mandeveli) as express services. The point is MTC has permitted only to operate conventional town buses with 48 seats along this route.
The vehicles owned by the state transport corporations including MTC should be operated only along the routes approved by the transport authority and violation of this rule would attract a fine amount of Rs 2500. This was as per rule 248 of TN Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989. In the past, more than 1500 government buses have been booked for violating this rule is known.
It was later mentioned by a commuter from Mandeveli that small buses were designed only for short trips and it was unfortunate to travel in small buses till Broadway. He spoke about how it was difficult to get down or move inside the small bus when it was crowded.
It was brought out by an official belonging to MTC that small bus services were operated twice in a day for the sake of many government employees working in the secretariat to help them to travel easily from their residences to the workplace. The official then explained about how it would be a loss to operate small buses along the regular routes because the seating capacity in the small buses was less.
It is important to mention that all small buses were operated as express services when reality check took place. Information collected is the fare for the ordinary bus services was Rs 9 to travel from Mandeveli to Broadway and on an average 120 bus services are operated along this route from Mandeveli depot every day carrying around 5000 passengers.
Some experts have revealed that during festivals etc small and regular MTC buses get diverted to the neighbouring districts. They added that patronage would be affected if the bus services were not regular. It was shown by official data that daily patronage recorded per small bus has come down from 625 in the year 2017 to 565 in 2019.
In 2013, as many as200 small buses were introduced in Chennai to provide last-mile connectivity to the commuters. It is now said that more than 180 of these buses were operated regularly.
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