The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : GPS in more MTC buses

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Friday, Sep 19, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

GPS in more MTC buses

P. Oppili

CHENNAI: The Metropolitan Transport Corporation will introduce Global Positioning System (GPS) facility in 500 buses by the end of this year.

At present, 55 buses plying on two routes Tambaram - High Court and Tambaram - Avadi have the GPS installed in them.

The facility helps passengers waiting at a bus stop to track the movement of a particular bus, fitted with GPS, by following the information displayed on a board fixed at select bus stops. This would help the passengers use the MTC services according to their convenience, said a Transport Department official.

The World Bank had provided a grant of Rs 3 crore for this initiative. The International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore, is the nodal agency for monitoring the project, said an officer of the Transport Department.

In order to fix the display boards connected to the GPS, new bus shelters would be constructed in the city and its suburbs. While the MTC has control over nearly 450 bus shelters, the Chennai Corporation has control over nearly 350 bus shelters.

They would be renovated and the work would begin soon, said the Transport Department officer told The Hindu.

The MTC achieved a record sale of ‘travel as you please’ (TAYP) passes of daily, weekly and monthly modes.

The TAYP daily mode pass sale stood at 21,204 in 2007-08, which rose to 2.37 lakh in the present financial year.

The Corporation sold 3,200 weekly mode passes in 2007-08 which rose to 5,000 in the current fiscal.

As far as monthly TAYP pass was concerned, the Corporation had recorded a phenomenal growth. In 2007-08 nearly 22,700 monthly TAYP passes were sold and this year so far a total of 37,637 passes were sold, the authorities said.

With the increase in the sale of TAYP passes, the Corporation had earned Rs 4.28 crore in 2008-09, which was only Rs 3 crore in the last financial year, the authorities added.

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