There was hardly any seat left vacant in the regular and special buses of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) and the State Express Transport Corporation (SETC) buses that were plying to other districts from Coimbatore, on Monday night.
“On Monday, more than 70 per cent of expected commuters had left Coimbatore,” the officials here said and added that arrangements were under way for commuters to return Coimbatore without much difficulty from Thursday to Sunday.
A senior TNSTC official said that a total of 526 special buses were being operated for the Deepavali festival from Coimbatore Division of the corporation comprising The Nilgiris, Coimbatore, Erode and Tirupur districts.
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“These buses are in addition to a total of 2,983 buses of the division that connect other districts,” the official said.
He noted that 188 special buses were being operated from the district from October 17 to 26 to benefit commuters during Deepavali.
A majority of the special buses were operated to Madurai (75), followed by Tiruchi (60), Salem (30) and Theni (15).
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The official said that special buses also included spare buses of the corporation. He added that a few town buses were also mobilised for commuting passengers to other districts.
Diverting town buses was carried out based on necessity for more buses in the mofussil bus terminals.
No seatsSETC officials here said that all the buses in 40 routes that covered long distances in Tamil Nadu and in the nearby States from Coimbatore were full, from Friday night.
No seats were available on Monday. Contrarily, there were not many takers for the buses on Tuesday as SETC buses covered long distances and commuters started a day in advance to reach their hometowns on the day before Deepavali.