The Hindu : Front Page : 600 buses in Chennai to get GPS

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Tuesday, Mar 03, 2009
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600 buses in Chennai to get GPS

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: Six hundred buses of the Metropolitan Transport Corporation will get GPS (Global Positioning System) by next month-end.

It would help provide information to the passengers about the coming bus stops. Those waiting at the stops would get information about the expected arrival time of the buses. Most of these buses would be operated on Anna Salai and Poonamallee High Road. The initiative to improve the services would also help the MTC monitor the location of the buses and the drivers’ driving habits.

The GPS system was introduced sometime ago on a trial basis on buses on routes 21G (Tambaram-Broadway) and 70 (Tambaram-Avadi).

By this month-end, 300 buses will be fitted with the system. By next month, another 300 buses will get GPS, Transport Secretary Debendranath Sarangi told reporters here on Monday.

The MTC has procured 4,000 hand-held ticketing machines with Rs.4 crore provided by the Centre. The machines would provide information about the patronage on different routes. In turn, this would help the transport corporation to improve the efficiency of its fleet, he said.

In the current financial year, 1,100 new buses will replace old buses. By 2010, the MTC hopes to increase its fleet strength to 4,000 buses.

The average revenue from air-conditioned buses was Rs.10,000 a day, indicating that the service was being well received, he said.

Under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, the MTC had received funds to modernise depots and termini in the city and its suburbs, he said.

MTC managing director M. Ramasubramanian said the transport corporation was looking for space to build depots in Semmancheri, Padappai and Medavakkam. The Besant Nagar depot and the termini in Thiruvanmiyur, Vadapalani, Foreshore Estate, Ambattur and Mogappair West would be improved, he said.

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