Has the Mysuru Intelligent Transport System (Mitra) that is in operation in Mysuru on intra-city routes since over five years helped in saving costs to the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC)?
The answer, according to KSRTC officials here, was a resounding yes. They claim that over ₹5.85 crore had been saved since the launch of Mitra.
A sum of ₹1.60 crore had been saved through optimising the bus schedules. With this approach, 2,314 km was being saved daily – 8,44,610 km annually – at ₹18.95 per km since 2014-15, according to KSRTC Divisional Controller and Mitra Project Officer K. Ramamurthy.
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Also, despite using a lesser number of buses, the effectiveness of the operations had remained the same. The same distance has been covered using eight lesser buses. The procurement cost of each bus is around ₹33 lakh. This approach has effectively saved ₹2.64 crore, Mr. Ramamurthy said.
Even maintenance costs had come down with savings on lubricants and filters at an average cost of 20 paise and 5 paise respectively. About ₹2.19 lakh had been saved from this exercise.
By reducing the number of staff at the Central City Bus Station here, the KSRTC has managed to save about ₹35 crore. Particularly, 62,475 hours of overtime has been reduced thanks to ITS, according to the analysis done on the ITS performance.
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One of the aims of the ITS was to provide real-time information on bus arrival and departure with real-time tracking and reduced waiting time at bus shelters.
The efficiency of services had improved with minimal cancellation of buses owing to late departures and depot departure punctuality.
Depot departure punctuality was around 91% last year, which was 19% before ITS came into play, he added.
The cancellation of buses owing to late departures was around 42,288 km in 2014-15, and dropped to 16,948 in 2016-17 (up to January 2017).
According to the KSRTC, 63% of commuters use the bus schedule information from ITS mediums to plan their trips and 77% prefer getting bus arrival information at the bus stops itself.
A whopping 1,43,392 SMSes had been received on the designated number of ITS seeking information on buses arrival or departure in 2016-17 (up to January 2017). The number of commuters accessing information from the commuter portal of Mitra was around 67,771. Requests were also coming through the mobile application ‘Mitra-KSRTC App’ which was designed by the engineering students of Mysuru last year.
Fuel automation to benefit KSRTC
The KSRTC in Mysuru may start saving on fuel by integrating fuel automation with the Intelligent Transport System (ITS).
“We may soon start realising the benefits of fuel automation with bus-wise and driver-wise saving on fuel consumption. The last fuel data and the net fuel efficiency achieved besides the consumption of fuel per km by each bus will be available as a result of the automation of the fuel management system,” according to officials.
Fuel automation had been introduced separately in 46 depots in the State. The stock levels in each depot can be checked at the central office in Bengaluru without visiting the depots. The efficiency of each vehicle can be assessed via daily consumption reports, they add.