TSRTC city services see rise in patronage

Occupancy in city buses goes up over 50% and is expected to improve further

Hyderabad: In a rare positive during times of despair, the TSRTC’s city buses, which met with a lukewarm response on resumption of services in September, are now witnessing a growing patronage from passengers with overall occupancy registering a steady rise.

According to TSRTC officials, passenger occupancy in the city buses has now gone up over 50 per cent and is expected to improve further once offices and educational institutes reopen. On an average, TSRTC’s Greater Hyderabad Zone (GHZ) is registering occupancy of 50 to 53 per cent a day. The corporation is also increasing the operations depending on the response from passengers, a senior official said.

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Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the RTC had suspended operations for over six months and resumed services on 39 main routes in the city on September 25. As a precautionary measure, RTC authorities were instructed to confine operations in city buses to 25 per cent.

V Venkateshwarlu, Executive Director (GHZ) said the initial response was very low. “We initially registered occupancy of 12 to 15 per cent a day. Now occupancy has touched 50 per cent,” he said, adding that the public were slowly beginning to prefer RTC buses, which in turn has helped in improving daily revenue in the city. “We are recording a revenue of Rs 1.25 crore a day. Before the lockdown, the overall revenue in the city was around Rs 3.3 crore a day,” Venkateshwarlu said.

According to officials, around 900 to 1,000 buses including mofussil services were being operating daily in GHZ. RTC was instructed to increase bus operations beyond 25 per cent only when the occupancy touched 75 per cent. Apart from city services, buses going from Hyderabad to districts including Warangal, Yadadri-Bhongir and Karimnagar too are witnessing good patronage. The corporation is also registering an improvement in overall revenue with the resumption of inter-state buses between Telangana and AP.

Bus pass facility extended:

The TSRTC is providing an opportunity for extension of bus pass facility to the extent of number of days lost due to the lockdown for general commuters. This facility has been extended for those have not utilised their bus passes such as Ordinary, Metro Express, Metro Deluxe, Greater Hyderabad, Airport Pushpak AC during the lockdown.

Such bus pass commuters were requested to utilise the opportunity by submitting their old pass (Id card, ticket) at bus pass counters seeking extension of the number of the lost days while obtaining new bus passes. This facility has to be availed on or before November 30.
The RTC is providing bus pass facility in 15 counters across the city including at Rathifile, Uppal, Dilsukhnagar, Medchal, Afzalgunj and Mehdipatnam.

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