The Hindu : New Delhi News : Games transportation a major challenge for OC

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Games transportation a major challenge for OC

Jiby Kattakayam

Concern about car drivers' lack of familiarity with English and its various accents

Photo: S. Subramanium

At your service: While the cars which will be used to ferry the Commonwealth Games officials are stationed at the Vinay Marg Depot, the buses have been lined up at the Millennium Park Depot in New Delhi.

NEW DELHI: With athletes and delegates beginning to arrive for the upcoming Commonwealth Games, their transportation between the Games Village, hotels and Games venues will be a major challenge ahead for the Organising Committee.

With 574 air-conditioned low-floor buses to be operated by the Delhi Transport Corporation and 1800 cars provided by Tata Motors at its disposal, OC officials said the logistics are in place and they are confident of addressing ad-hoc requests and any shortcomings as they arise.

While the cars are at the Vinay Marg depot, the buses have been sheltered at the Millennium Park depot. A call centre has also been set up at Gurgaon (Ph:0124-4292000) with the help of Tata Motors to monitor and co-ordinate the requests for shared car rides.

Dedicated cars

Among the cars, 350 dedicated cars have been allocated to Commonwealth Games Associations and high-profile delegates who have been placed in the T1 category. Another 400-500 cars are for officials in the T2 category and these are shared-ride cars which are available on request by calling the Gurgaon call centre. In addition, contingents from each country have also been allocated cars based on the contingent size.

GPS facility

The OC's Special Director General in-charge of Transportation Jiji Thomson said the OC has hired nearly 2000 drivers and on Friday provided them with a mobile phone, equipped each car and bus with GPS (Global Positioning System) facility and installed RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) gadgets to open secured gates at all venues. He said the drivers have also been given a list of important phone numbers in case of an emergency.

Nerve centre

The Bus Operations Centre on the 5 {+t} {+h} floor of the OC headquarters will be the nerve centre for the buses to ferry athletes, technical officials, media personnel, workforce and volunteers. Jaipal Singh, OC's Project Officer for Bus Systems Management, said DTC has been given the entire schedule of athletes and officials for the Games and based on this the journey times and number of people to transport has been calculated. He said each bus would have besides the driver, a conductor, a liaison officer and security personnel.

The bus operations trials were conducted on September 24 with 240 buses and they coincided with the opening of the Barapullah elevated road that now connects the Games Village with the main venue, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

However, the Organising Committee has been faced with a new problem as the car drivers could not be imparted adequate training. Most of the drivers are not conversant in English and even those who are find it difficult to pick up the various English accents.

On September 22, Commonwealth Games Federation CEO Mike Hooper was at the receiving end of this problem. On getting into his dedicated car, he asked the driver to take him to the Games Village. The driver drove him to the Asiad Games Village Complex instead of the Commonwealth Games Village, much to Mr. Hooper's frustration.

As a result, the OC has now begun a crash course for drivers in spoken English. A highly-placed source in the OC said this problem was caused by the delay in assigning the contract for the car vendor to Tata Motors.

While the contract was ready to be signed in January, the source said OC chairman Suresh Kalmadi kept the file with him till August.

The delay meant that OC also found it difficult to recruit 2,000 drivers within Delhi and had to fan out to neighbouring States like Haryana and even Himachal Pradesh to cover the deficit. This posed a fresh problem in that some of the drivers are unfamiliar with Delhi roads.

Mr. Thomson said a helpline is being set up to facilitate communication between car drivers and their passengers.

The helpline will guide drivers if they get lost and also convey instructions from the passenger to the driver.

The Opening and Closing Ceremony will be another logistic challenge for the OC. On October 3 and 14, the OC will have to transport all the delegates, athletes and officials to Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

Mr. Thomson said on both these days the OC will transport a majority of the guests on buses, save for VVIPs.

After the Games are over, Tata Motors will take back the 1800 cars used in the Games. The OC has stated that the total cost to Tata Motors is Rs. 34 crore, of which the OC will pay Rs. 10 crore by way of drivers' salary, fuel and management while Rs. 24 crore has been waived by Tata Motors as sponsorship amount.

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