Daily feeder service planned in Chennai

The government is planning to buy 500 small vehicles for this new service at a cost of Rs 35 crore. Based on the success, the service would be extended to other parts of the state.

Speaking to Business Standard on Friday, KN Nehru, state minister for transport, said initially they would roll out 500 vehicles in Chennai.

These vehicles will pick up passengers from doorstep and connect important centres of the city including bus terminus, IT corridors, industrial belts and other important places. "The deal is to connect remote places and the places where buses could not go due to small roads and due to various issues."

Each vehicle can accommodate 20 people. A study in this regard has already been carried out, though routes are yet to be decided, he added.

The minister said the government was also planning to buy 1,000 new buses including 20 air-conditioned during the current fiscal. He added that the number of passengers travelling by city bus has increased to 4.6 million from 4 million a year before. This figure is likely to increase by another 1 million once the new feeder service starts.

Of the 4 million, around 3 million passengers use different schemes, which are offered by the Chennai Metropolitan Transport. To give all these schemes as a bouquet and make it easier and accessible a new smart card system is likely to be introduced by Chennai Metropolitan Transport in 2008-09.

Nehru said every day 3,800 to 4,000 new vehicles were getting registered. To cater to the demand 21 new RTOs have been opened in the last fiscal and will open more in 2008-09.

He noted, Rs 4,900 crore has been allotted for road construction and around 330 accident spots are identified where speed breakers and other warning signals will be installed at the cost of Rs 12 crore.

In the last two years around 6,000 new buses are bought for different transportation departments by the state government, maintenance of these buses are likely to be outsourced during 2008-09.

During the last fiscal the transport corporation introduced online ticket reservation system, during the current fiscal the corporation is planning to introduce e-ticketing system.