Route details vanish from MTC bus shelters

Commuters who are new to the area are not sure whether their bus will halt at that stop. In the past, some shelters had even a display board of the possible timings of arrival and departure for individual bus routes. Activists and bus commuters feel the officials concerned must take corrective steps at the earliest to paint the numbers over there. Some resent that colourful advertisements occupy more space on the shelters and the passengers’ interests have been totally disregarded. 

The city has around 1,060 MTC bus shelters and 75 per cent of the bus shelters do not have the bus route numbers. “Most MTC bus shelters do not have bus route numbers and advertisements occupy all the space available. So bus commuters, particularly those new to the area, find it difficult to trace the bus routes,” said A Raman, a city-based civic activist. He remarked that the corporation should not merely focus on revenue coming from the sponsors, but also look at the convenience of bus commuters. He recalled how some years ago all the bus shelters had route numbers.

 “In a big city like Chennai, more and more people are coming every day and they can reach their destination only if they know route numbers and details. So the officials should appreciate the fact that bus route numbers are necessary for every bus shelter,” said T Baskaran, a regular bus commuter of Aminjikarai. 

When contacted, L Nandakumar, Superintending Engineer (Roads, Bridges & Works), Greater Chennai Corporation, said that they had started work on that. “We have already completed this work for 50 bus shelters and we will complete the work soon,” he assured.

Sometime back, the corporation decided to scrap the GPS gadgets fitted in about 500 buses which were meant to update commuters at various bus stops. 

For example, electronic display boards were put up in Koyambedu bus stand, Thirumangalam, Anna Nagar West to display the real time and the arrival time of the next bus of a particular route in English as well as Tamil. 

The MTC also wanted to use GPS for monitoring the bus conductors. But it has made no headway so far.