The 14.5-metre buses that can accommodate more than 110 commuters will hit the city roads by the end of this week, according to KR Srinivasa, managing director, BMTC.
Although the routes along which the buses will ply have not been decided yet, the MD said that it is most likely to be on the Outer Ring Road. “The chassis of the vehicle is about 14.5 metres long.
As such, the conditions on Ring Road are most suitable to test the vehicle. We have not tested the vehicle yet. It is only after a trial of two months we will be able to analyse whether these vehicles can be used here,” he said, speaking on the sidelines of an event on Wednesday.
The KSRTC will soon be trying out hybrid buses that run on both diesel and the LPG. According to Manjunath Prasad, MD, KSRTC, “We have fitted the bus with an LPG kit. The bus will run on 85% diesel and 15% LPG. When CNG comes to the state, we will replace it with CNG,” he said.
The KSRTC is also experimenting with bamboo flooring for buses, according to Prasad.
CG Anand, chief mechanical engineer (purchases), BMTC, and formerly with KSRTC, said that the bamboo flooring would be a good replacement for plywood, which is being used in 100 KSRTC buses.
The bamboo would be purchased from Mizoram and will be compressed and fire retardant, he added.
Bold decisions
Move people, not vehicles; while this message is often forgotten by bureaucrats and civic authorities, TG Sitharam, head of Centre for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transport and Urban Planning, said that to make transport sustainable, and to ensure that transportation did not account for the pollution that it was causing today, bold decisions were required.
“There are 53 Indian cities with a population more than 10 lakh, three cities with a population of more than a crore and five are soon becoming mega cities. There are 497 cities that have a population more than one lakh. Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad are cities with more than 10,000 people/sq km. We have 12 motor vehicles per 100 people and our sale of cars is growing at 25%-30% per year. If we want to seriously fight pollution, most of which comes from vehicles, we have to make bold decisions with regard to congestion and parking,” he said.
He said that along with this, the government should seriously pursue commuter rail to meet the population’s transportation needs. He added that buses going long distance also need to be made direction-based.
