Faced with a marked rejection of the services to the airport by commuters that saw occupancy ratios (OR) plummet over the years, the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation has replaced 10 of its old Tata Marcopolo buses on the airport route with swank new B9R Volvo buses.
There are more than one reasons for this swift and costly decision to raise the eyebrows that it did. The Volvos are expensive - almost ₹ 1 crore each compared to the Tata Marcopolos that were inducted into the TSRTC fleet in 2009-10, spending about ₹ 55 lakh to ₹ 60 lakh each.
The second is the concern over the rate of breakdowns. “We were beginning to average two to three breakdowns a day. Our concerns increased when we found that these services were simply being rejected by commuters who preferred to pay more for cabs. We had to do something,” says a senior officer.
The low-slung, easy-to-board and air-conditioned airport shuttles ply on three routes - A1, A2 and B2. The replacements have been effected in the A1 and A2 sectors - five each.
The decision had to be supported by evidence to show passenger dissatisfaction and that it impacted occupancy and hence records were tracked to prove changing people’s preferences. The airport shuttles are all operated by the Secunderabad division of the corporation.
The fact is such high-end buses are profitable only if they run a minimum of 650 km a day. Currently, the airport shuttles operate an average of 324 km a day, considering that the route length is 41 km to the airport. Despite the huge difference in cost of the buses, the cost per km incurred on a Marcopolo is ₹ 62 and for a Volvo it is between ₹ 68 and ₹ 70.
The steady fall in OR apart, it also had a takeaway for the officers. While going to the airport, the Marcopolos’ OR was as low as 20%, indicating that people did not wish to run the risk of missing a flight. After landing here, people did not mind waiting for a rickety bus to get into the city as the OR was sometimes 80% !
So the corporation is betting big on increasing OR both ways and more revenues!
