HYDERABAD : The city region of RTC, which introduced 200 new bus routes catering to the increasing demand in the last couple of years, will now focus on reinforcing these services besides introducing 320 more buses on the busy routes. Buoyed by the performance of the city region, which bagged the national award for fuel efficiency for 2002-03 and 2003-04, and 14 of the 21 city depots earning profits during 2004-05, officials are ready with plans to make bus travel more convenient and comfortable to city commuters. Of the 212 depots in the State, only 22 earned profits and 14 of them belonged to the city region, according to Regional Manager Ch. Panduranga Murthy.

"The focus will be on drawing more from the existing resources and services without additional investment as pumping in more buses will only add to road congestion. The twin cities have the lowest road area space (6 per cent) compared to other metros, which also boast of Mass Rapid Transit System," he said.

Good response

The concepts introduced last year like circular routes with uni-terminal schedule led to gain in time and more km per bus. Also, telescopic routes for merging of buses and halts at stops with high demand to save on transit time instead of terminating at a common place resulting in lot of bus movement were well received, he said.

"We will shortly introduce mini buses for colonies away from the main road as residents are forced to depend on other modes of transport like seven-seaters and autorickshaws resulting in more pollution. The mini buses will also be plied in peripheral routes."

New proposals

Long-distance hi-tech buses to Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and other centres, which remain idle till night, were being used by the city region during day time to ply in heavy demand routes like Patancheru-Dilsukhnagar, Jeedimetla-Koti, Patancheru-Secunderabad. "With 80 per cent occupancy, we could put to use 25 such buses with a frequency of seven minutes in heavy demand routes like Patancheru-Dilsukhnagar," he said.

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