The colours chosen by the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) authorities for painting their new fleet of buses to make them appear attractive seem to be causing confusion among the commuters in differentiating a city bus with ordinary fare and those collecting additional fare.
The confusion also extends to the issue of differentiating a city bus and a mofussil bus. The problem persists more with semi-literate and illiterate people who come to the city from rural areas.
Of late, the new buses of the TNSTC hitting the roads are in impressive colours. Though the replacement of rickety fleets of old buses with new buses in impressive colours need to be welcomed, the confusion that it seems to be causing among the commuters should be overcome by TNSTC resorting to a uniform colour code for its city buses, says K. Kathirmathiyon of Coimbatore Consumer Cause.
In a memorandum to the District Collector, Mr. Kathirmathiyon said that till recently TNSTC Coimbatore had different colours for the so-called LSS, Express, and Deluxe service and the ordinary service was operated with the approved colour i.e. metal body with post office red colour in the front.
Now all category of buses with new fitness certificates are operated with a single colour, i.e. maroon with cream colour.
Even though other than ordinary service is operated illegally, at least the people were able to identify the buses which would collect more fare. This helped people to avoid them and wait for the ordinary service buses. Now, the TNSTC for reasons best known to it, changed colours on its own probably to confuse the public. The consumer body could not find any other reason for it, he said.
The colour code for town buses was notified by the Regional Transport Authority, Coimbatore several years ago. The main reason for prescribing colour code was to identify the city buses from mofussil buses. Now, it is absolutely necessary even within the town buses to enable the public to identify the buses with other than ordinary service fare.
Even though not even a single fare table was approved for LSS, Express and Luxury service buses, the Transport Department was not enforcing the rules and no remedy was in sight for the people with regard to the extra fare being charged by buses with just a different “name”.
At least if the people are able to identify the buses, it would help them to choose the bus for their journey. It would avoid unnecessary friction between public and the conductor inside the bus. This change in colour pattern has resulted in people being pushed to wait for a private bus for avoiding this confusion. The CCC requested the Collector to enforce the colour code for buses.
N. Marappan of Kamanaickenpalayam said that people like him who could not read or write could seek the help of the fellow passengers at the bus stop to identify a bus that they should take but would not be possible to help them identify a bus with ordinary fare.
TNSTC officials said that only new buses were coming in such new colours and the colour of the buses will be changed, whenever they are taken for renewal of fitness certificate.
