The extension of the Chennai Metro has sparked demands from people for more small buses to cater to last-mile connectivity problems involving several residential areas.
While the Metro is yet to be completed in the northern section, commuters in western and southern parts of the city concede that though the service is costly, there is a strong case for using the Metro in places where there is no direct Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) bus connectivity, and which entail a lot of travelling time.
For instance, a resident of Adambakkam or Nanganallur who wants to travel to Shenoy Nagar or Anna Nagar has to either take two or three buses, or fork out a lot of money for a taxi. A small bus service would prove useful for him, allowing him to take the Metro on this route. The small buses were supposed plug the connectivity gap, but that hasn’t happened.
Despite the MTC operating around 180 buses, mostly in south Chennai areas covering several Metro stations and the Velachery MRTS station, commuters complain that small buses are not dependable. Raghavan, a resident of Nanganallur, said the main complaint for the residents in Adambakkam, West Velachery and Nanganallur is the paucity of small buses to Metro stations such as Alandur on the Inner Ring Road that connects both Velachery MRTS station and the Nanganallur Metro station. Similarly there is a huge demand for small buses in areas where the roads are not accessible for wide-bodied MTC buses.
A senior official of the State Transport Department said that though there is demand for small buses from various quarters, the reality is poor occupancy on several routes. Even on routes where there is good occupancy, MTC on an average loses ₹10,000 per day on a small bus because of the high operational costs.
“Operating a small bus with a bus driver and conductor does not make for good economic sense. So, we are working on a plan where the bus would have only a driver and no conductor, with the ticket being electronically generated,” he said.
In the current situation, commuters find that share autos are more dependable because of their flexibility, with no rules governing their operation or fares. Commuters in some areas have come to depend on these ‘cheap’ share autos for last-mile connectivity. Share autos have come to dominate some routes, including Anna Nagar to Anna Salai, Toll Gate to Broadway, and Vadapalani to Porur.
However, not all of them are ‘legal’. Except for 200 three-wheeler share autos having permits, all other four-wheeler share autos are unauthorised. Commuters argue for legitimising these share autos, as this would help regulate their operations in terms of routes and fares.
