Imagine sitting at home sprawled on your sofa and having all the information about public buses to every the nook and corner of the city, that too on your mobile phone. If the city buses project launched under the JNNURM had gone
the right way, that was to be the kind of service available to Kochiites by now. However, in spite of the fact that it has been years after the buses were launched and that all the technology required for providing the
service is already fitted on to the buses, the service still seems nowhere close to materialisation. According to sources from Kochi Corporation, a control room was to be set up exclusively for the JNNURM buses. The control room would not only have real time vehicle tracking systems for all the buses under the JNNURM, but also be able to access information on the number of passengers boarding the bus, information on traffic snarls, breakdown of vehicles and other details. This would in turn enable the control room to direct buses to areas with more passenger movement,
redirect them away from points of heavy traffic congestion and allocate buses in specific routes or at specific timings. Meanwhile, for the passenger, this would provide direct access to bus timings, bus routes and the number of buses in specific routes, all at the click of the mobile phone.
“The corporation was to set up a company with representatives from the various transport agencies and other concerned state and central bodies. The company was to be in-charge of the working of the control room and also
of the bus routes. A Detailed Project Report (DPR) was also submitted to the Central Government for the project
after detailed studies and consultations on this. The basis of the DPR was the National Urban Transport Policy under which the buses are to be provided to the suburban population to reach the city and access the services of the city. But in violation of all this, the state government used its overriding powers and handed over the JNNURM buses to the cash strapped KSRTC. The KSRTC now funds the buses in routes without any scientific basis and often
the routes are governed by political interests, thereby defeating the very purpose of the buses. In fact a number of buses are not used by the KSRTC now”, said a senior member of Kochi Corporation. Meanwhile, the KSRTC officials denied the charges and said that the integrated transport facilities would take more time to materialise. “The whole system would involve setting up of an integrated control room and many other technologies for the coordination of the buses. This would involve huge costs and also the technical know-how which is unavailable with us now. A few initiatives have also been taken up on this count,” said the Assistant Transport Officer, KSRTC, Kochi.
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