No. of views : (3178)
Patronage in MTC buses has increased now in Chennai, SOP adopted
Posted on: 04/Nov/2020 9:34:34 AM
After 16th of November 2020, there would be more relaxations in the lockdown norms. It is known that the suburban train services have not started operating in Chennai. In this situation, it would be ideal to operate more number of MTC bus services for the public. The MTC has thought in a different manner and it has decided to keep one third of its 3300 strong fleet.
When compared to last month the patronage has been better now. This was according to a senior official belonging to MTC. He added that MTC buses on uneconomical routes have been running just half empty now in the peak hours. On Monday, 2nd November, 15lakhs of people travelled by 2100 MTC buses in Chennai and this was as per an official data. It is worth mentioning that the daily average in the third and fourth weeks in September was 12lakhs
The senior official later spoke about how technically as many as 1500 buses were needed to carry these many people and how MTC has been operating 600 extra buses to make sure that standard operating procedure or SOP could be adopted. Suburbs such as Avadi, Tambaram and Red Hills have been connected to shopping hubs like T. Nagar, Purasawalkam and Vallalar Nagar by means of extra 50 special MTC buses. The main objective was to clear the extra rush for deepavali shopping.
In the western suburbs, only skeletal services are being operated now and the people belonging to places like Thirunindravur, Vepampattu etc are forced to take shared autos etc to reach Avadi from getting MTC buses for their destinations. This was mentioned by Mr. T. Sadagopan, consumer rights activist.
He shed light on how every person has to spend an extra amount of Rs 20 to Rs 40 every day to go to work and come back. Road over bridge work has been going on in Pattabiram and hence the buses have to take long routes to travel to places beyond this. This was brought out by an officer of MTC. There were also complaints from the commuters about irregular timings of the buses.
It was later pointed out by Mr. Rama Rao of Chennai based Traffic and Transportation Forum or TTF that there has been no clarity regarding the resumption of suburban trains in Chennai. He compared the situation of Chennai with Mumbai. There is currently a huge increase in the private vehicles and that was due to the lack of enough public transport options.
Post your requirement - We will connect with the right vendor or service provider
