After the increase of bus fares in November last year, the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) claims to have considerably increased the number of white board services covering the city and suburbs. However, a section of commuters in south Chennai say they have not seen any change in the operation of services.
A senior official at MTC said the number of white board services has been almost doubled, to make life easier for commuters. Two years ago, the number of white board services was 690, while at present it was at an all time high of 1,318, he said. Explaining the different services that were now being operated, the official said that ‘M' services and Limited Stop Services (LSS) have been suspended. At present, MTC operates only white board, deluxe and express services.
While a few commuters in north Chennai said white board services had gone up, those in south Chennai complain that such buses are minimal.
M. Kasi Raju, who commutes regularly in an MTC bus from Pallikaranai to Velachery, said that a large number of buses continued to be operated as express and deluxe services covering Pallikaranai, Medavakkam, Madipakkam, Thoraipakkam and Velachery. He complained that there was no clear cut policy by the MTC in operating white board services. He said that if MTC claimed to have doubled the number of white board services, then they should be operated on all routes. He claimed that these buses only operated in posh residential areas such as Mandaveli, T. Nagar, Mylapore, Alwarpet, Thiruvanmiyur, and R.A. Puram and wanted to know why this was the case.
Other commuters did not find any difference in the services, including the deluxe and express services, other than the collection of exorbitant bus fares.
H. Bhagavathy, a resident of Tiruvottiyur, said the fare was two times higher for deluxe buses and 1.5 times more for express services compared to the ones with white boards.
“I do not find any difference between travelling in a white board, express or deluxe bus,” he said. He also complained that the deluxe buses with digital boards have started ageing, with their automatic doors not functioning, the passenger seats not comfortable and to top it all, they remain heavily crowded. About express buses (which have green boards), he said they did not offer any benefit either in comfort or help in reaching one's destination faster.
A retired official of MTC said that LSS and express services were introduced to enable commuters reach their destination quickly by skipping a few bus stops that did not have much patronage. The deluxe bus services with automatic doors were introduced keeping in mind the safety of the commuters. “When these services were introduced, our policy was to operate only 20 per cent of our buses on these services,” he said.
He added that MTC should operate deluxe and express services in a limited manner. But today, express and deluxe services were operated to make money rather than to offer any benefit to the commuters, he rued.
