If there is one thing that has remained constant over the years among commuters in the city, it is the complaints about the Metropolitan Transport Corporation buses. Rickety vehicles, shaky seats, jammed window panes and leaky roofs are problems that have irked commuters for years.
The MTC has a fleet strength of 3,716 buses. On any given day, over 3,200 buses are on the road. However, many commuters who travel by these buses said that the maintenance of the buses needs to be improved drastically.
Broken down
“The windows get jammed quite often. This is one of the common problems I experience while travelling in an MTC bus. Besides, the seat frame is unpolished and this sometimes injures passengers,” said M. Somasundaram, liaison officer, Consumer Association of India, who attends frequent meetings of the voluntary consumer organisation with the Metropolitan Transport Corporation.
K. Subashree, a law college student, said that last month when she was returning from college, the knob holding the window pane broke and fell on her hand. “This happened near Thoraipakkam when the bus 91, I was travelling in rode over a speed breaker. I had a blood clot,” she said.
Besides, in most MTC buses the automatic doors do not function properly. “A total of 48 seated passengers and 24 standing can travel in a bus. But on an average more than 125 passengers travel in them.
“Many of them travel on footboards and prevent the doors from closing. Hence they get jammed over time. However the driver is blamed for not closing it,” said a MTC employee.
Many MTC employees pointed out the need to increase the strength of technical staff.
Lack of manpower
“There is a need for 1.15 technical staff per bus. But as of now the strength is 0.72 due to which its difficult to check all buses in a depot. There is shortage of materials too,” claimed a source.
Sources said that the driver also plays a crucial role in maintenance of buses.
“Rash driving on bad roads damages the tyres. Besides the driver should regularly check the brakes,” said an official. He claimed that the metro rail project left a number of arterial roads in poor shape leading to maintenance problems.
“Now that the stretches where the metro work has been completed have been repaired, the breakdown complaints have come down drastically,” he added.
Senior officials from the Metropolitan Transport Corporation said that the performance of the vehicles is good. “There is a strict protocol in place to check the vehicles. One should also remember that most of the vehicles are as old as 15 years,” said an official.
