Taking note of the city-wide protests against inadequate bus services and demand for more buses on the road, the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) on Friday added 140 more buses to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), this comes in addition to the 400 buses already crisscrossing in the MMR areas.
The MSRTC has a fleet of 18,000 buses and presently 5,500 buses are running across different routes in the state. Those travelling daily from the suburban districts of Palghar, Virar, Kalyan and Ambernath areas don't have adequate last mile connectivity road transport services, with local trains limiting its services to essential service providers only, common Mumbaikars are bearing their daily brunt of travel. “The newly-introduced buses will be plying on various routes in the MMR considering the demand of the people. If required, more buses will be pressed into service" said MSRTC chief, Shekhar Channe.
"As per the regulations buses are operating at a 50 per cent capacity, still we are trying our best to ease the woes of commuters," Channe added.
MSRTC buses make an average 990 trips daily in the MMR areas, which will henceforth increase to 1,300 trips.
Meanwhile, the Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking also stated to operate its fleet in full capacity. BEST has an operational fleet of 3,700 buses of which 3,500 buses were pressed into service on Friday.
BEST spokesperson, Manoj Varade stated buses are being pressed in a phased manner at several routes across the city. “In the ongoing week, we have increased the number of buses by a significant margin, on Monday we had run 3,275 buses while on Friday we had pressed close to 3,500 buses" Varade told FPJ. “The undertaking is ready to run buses at maximum capacity but at the same time we have to follow rules of allowing 50 per cent passengers to commute only,” he added.
