From November 1, the Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) will operate two more routes of air-conditioned e-buses starting from Mumbai Airport. These buses will run till Borivali and Vashi respectively. The minimum fare will be Rs 50, while the maximum fare on the Airport-Borivali route will be Rs 100 and for the Airport-Vashi route, it will be Rs 150.
Recently two dedicated bus routes from the airport to south Mumbai and Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) were introduced. There are currently 16 bus services for the Airport-CSMT/Nariman Point route, which operate daily, and 16 other buses for the Airport-BKC route, which operate from Monday to Saturday.
The BEST officials said that they will extend the Airport-BKC service all the way to Vashi. The buses will not charge any extra fee for luggage carried by the passengers.
The Borivali East route will have five halts. BEST sources said that they will operate six services starting from the Airport and six services from Borivali for these dedicated AC e-buses.
The Airport-Vashi route too will have six services starting from the Airport and another six services will start from Vashi. The transport experts agree that this shall give a tough competition to aggregator cabs like Uber and Ola.
The authorities are planning to include more and more electric buses in the fleet. By March 2023, BEST aims to have a 50 per cent electric bus fleet and by March 2027 all the buses in the fleet will be electric.
