The bus owners in the district have whole heartedly welcomed the new schedule of buses that came into effect from Saturday.
The new schedule has been formed as part of the Motor Vehicles Department’s effort to check speeding of buses in the State, and thereby reduce the number of accidents.
After making speed governors mandatory, the Motor Vehicles Department has now scheduled the running time of the buses to suit the nature of the roads and the vehicle density. The new system is being implemented in Kozhikode, for the first time in the State. It will be implemented in other districts soon.
The bus operators admit that one of the major reasons for speeding and subsequent accidents is the tight timings of the buses.
“Earlier, we had only two minutes to cover one kilometre distance in the city. If the bus gets caught in a traffic block, we will have to speed up to keep with the schedule. Now we have three minutes, and hence, the drivers can relax a bit more,” general secretary of the Bus Operators’ Organisation K. Radhakrishnan told The Hindu .
The new system is very much beneficial to the operators in many ways, he says. “The relaxed timing takes off the tension from the driver. The passengers will have greater comfort in the journey. There will less sudden breaks. Ultimately, the maintenance cost will reduce by 75 per cent”, Mr. Radhakrishnan said. The re-scheduling has been carried out by the Regional Transport Office after consultation with all the bus operators.
The surrender of many bus services recently owing to lack of profit has left a wide gap in the bus timings on many routes. These gaps have been filled now with the relaxed timings of the remaining buses.
Though the new schedule has not affected the departure and arrival timings of buses much, the super fast long-distance buses are at the receiving end. The buses plying between Kozhikode and Palakkad, Kannur, or Sulthan Bathery used to cover one kilometre in one minute and 45 seconds.
Now the same distance shall be covered only in two minutes and 15 seconds. As a result, their overall running time between the two points will be increased by at least 30 minutes.
