The Telangana State Road Transport Corporation’s operations in the Greater Hyderabad Zone (GHZ) are inching towards normalcy, as vehicle utilisation, occupancy and earnings per kilometre are witnessing an uptick after COVID-19 restrictions were relaxed.
Data obtained by the Right to Information (RTI) Act of 2005 by transport researcher G S R Chaitanya, the occupancy for July was 54. This is the highest since February. The occupancy had taken a beating on account of the night curfew and partial lockdown from April through May.
Similarly, there has been an increase in earning per kilometre, despite the continuous increasing prices of diesel. While this was ₹ 31.81 in March, it gradually rose at the end of July to ₹ 32.43. The average vehicle utilisation too went up, as more buses were pressed into service.
The number of average number of kilometres operated per day too increased. For instance, in March 6.31 lakh km were operated. This increased at the end of July to 6.38 lakh km.
Speaking to The Hindu , Mr Chaitanya said that data shows that the TSRTC’s GHZ restored most of the services were early this year. The trend after the second wave too appears the same. “It is interesting to note, earnings increased as the TSRTC operated more services. The TSRTC should take this as a cue and make a case for an increasing in the size of network and fleet.”
However, in connection with fleet size, data shows that this has been gradually decreasing over the past few months, reflecting a need for an increase in new buses. In September 2020, the GHZ had a fleet size of 3,123 buses. The fleet held in July was 3,112. Meanwhile, while 16 new services were introduced in Hyderabad Region and 10 in Secunderabad Region since 2019, none were suspended due to the pandemic.
