Announcement regarding the next bus stop would be available for the passengers in the MTC buses in Chennai. Soon, MTC or metropolitan transport corporations would be fixing high tech GPS speakers in as many as500 buses in Chennai.
For announcing the forthcoming bus stops and the final destinations, 6 speakers (2 speakers each in front, rear and middle) would be fixed in each bus. It is learnt that MTC has taken this idea from CMRL for the public address system project or PAS for the purpose of increasing patronage.
It is worth mentioning that the set up consists of GPS receiver, antenna and audio amplifier along with speakers. The superb piece of information is that announcement would be made atleast 200m to 300m before the bus approaches the stop.
As per a senior official belonging to MTC, announcements would be in Tamil and to avoid confusion simpler English words would also be used. Those passengers who are not familiar with Chennai routes would feel comfortable by the announcements regarding the forthcoming stops etc. He mentioned that these passengers need not depend on their co-passengers to know the details of the forthcoming stops. On 29th January, tenders floated to install these devices were closed. After the bid evaluation process, work orders would be issued in a month or in 2 months. Truth is that this would be a no cost project for the MTC.
It is learnt that the successful bidder would have to pay a certain amount to the MTC on a daily basis. The bidders would be able to play advertisements on the speakers in between announcements. The MTC has not yet decided on the list of routes along which the speakers would be fixed. It must not be forgotten that in December 2019 MTC conducted a 6 month trial run on 50 buses along routes like 25G, 101 etc.