Mumbai: With the increase in daily ridership in its buses, the Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking has opened it's all 27 counters for selling bus passes.
Amid the three month-long lockdown period, BEST discontinued its service for Mumbaikars and ferried only essential service providers. With state government gradually starting the unlocking procedure with its 'Mission Begin Again' phase BEST resumed its normal service.
"Most of the commutters are now depended on BEST buses as they dont have the option of suburban railways, due to which we have restarted our bus passes facility" stated BEST spokesperson Manoj Varade. The spokesperson also told, the validity of the bus passes which were unused amid the lockdown period has been extended balancing with the days not travelled.
"The validity of the passes will also be extended by adjusting the number of unused days" added Varade.
Meanwhile, the ridership of the red buses have touched the 10 lakh mark on Wednesday.
According to the spokesperson Manoj Varade, the red buses had ferried 10,07,760 passengers on Wednesday and generated revenue of Rs 89.56 lakhs, which is the highest ever revenue generated in a day since the transport undertaking started to ferry passengers other than essential service providers, since early June.
Eversince the government had initiated its mission begin again phase, BEST had resumed carrying common Mumbaikars, initially the passenger footfall was low. However in the last one week there have been a steep rise in the number of passengers being ferried by the undertaking.
"Ferrying 10 lakh passengers in a day is a good number especially when buses are not carrying passengers in their full capacity as we need to adhere to social distancing policies" a senior official told FPJ.
BEST is running 3,000 buses daily from its fleet of 3,400 buses. Due to the increased number of buses the frequency have also improved.
Earlier, the undertaking used to ferry an average of 7 lakh passengers daily, in the last one week the number increased by 30 percent.
"We have increased the number of buses into service by assessing the demands, as the suburban railways are not ferrying the no essential staffers, people are mainly dependent of BEST buses" stated the official.
