AC buses yet to cool hearts of MTC

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Metropolitan Transport Corporation is keeping its fingers crossed as AC buses are expected to get the cash registers ringing this summer.

With the recent bus fare hike, occupancy ratio of AC buses has gone down. However, officials are hopeful of making most of the extremely humid weather condition prevailing in the city.

According to the internal estimates of MTC officials, after the recent fare hike, collections from a strong fleet of 100 AC buses were expected to increase by 50 per cent compared to the per day earnings before the hike.

Conversely, revenue only increased by a paltry 16 per cent. Barring a few stretches, buses were plying empty most of the times.

An official said the average daily earnings of the AC buses were around Rs 11, 000 to Rs 12, 000 prior to the fare hike and it has only increased a little wherein daily collections were ranging about Rs 13, 000 to Rs 14, 000.

Going by the trend prevailing over the past few months, officials are concerned on whether this summer would replicate previous years’ success story or not. However, the scorching summer had always come to the rescue of the cash-starved corporation and compensated the loss to some extent.

Also, the collections earned during March foretells that AC buses could keep the cash registers ringing this summer. “The average daily earnings of AC buses have crossed Rs 15,000 last month where the average collections were at Rs 12, 000 during the corresponding period of 2011,” a senior official said and pointed out that collections would improve along with the soaring heat and after the start of summer vacation for all educational institutions, when people will come out in large number to visit tourist spots.

anna nagar-airport shuttle service from April 13

MTC has decided to restore all its four airport shuttle service buses only to Anna Nagar from April 13.
This is due to poor response for the shuttle service to Velachery, Besant Nagar, introduced from March first week.

A senior official said all the four buses would be operated along Anna Nagar route as most of the air passengers who plan to visit Tirupati or passengers from northern destinations like Vellore could benefit if it were operated along Koyambedu (CMBT).

Besides, the patronage was very poor in Guindy – Adyar – Velachery stretch as compared to the previous Anna Nagar and Egmore routes.

Since the stretch largely catered to several posh areas and where passengers headed to the airport prefer travelling by their own vehicles, which DC had earlier pointed out in an exclusive report on rearrangement of shuttle services, it evoked lukewarm response.

MTC had launched four AC mini buses from Airport to Anna Nagar (via Koyambedu) and Egmore railway station (Via Mount Road) from November last. Few months later officials felt that these services were not generating the expected revenue and suspended the operations.

Subsequently, an NGO suggested operating the services on Velachery stretch, which was implemented from March. Four buses were being operated as circular services through Guindy, Adyar, Besant Nagar, and SRP tools, and Velachery.