Know about the new kneeling buses trials in Chennai now!!
Posted on: 18/Feb/2023 9:29:25 AM
In many European countries, kneeling buses are present and in these buses the body or entrance doors could be lowered to help the differently able persons and senior persons to board the bus.
In Chennai this week, trial run of kneeling buses (from Ashok leyland) has started and this was based on the instruction from the High Court of Madras.
It must be recalled that after many delays the state transport dept finally floated tenders in 2022 to procure new buses for Chennai. The state transport dept had also mentioned that all the buses would not be low flooring ones.
Citing the reason that the differently able persons and elderly persons would find it hard to board the conventional buses with high footboards, a public interest litigation was filed by activist Vaishnavi Jayakumar. It was later revealed by the TN govt that it was having plans to bust 342 low floor buses and those buses could not be operated on the majority of Chennai city bus routes passing through narrow roads and subways plus on the roads where metro rail construction work was carried out.
In this situation, the HC of Madras ordered the TN govt to arrange for a survey of routes in Chennai for knowing the issues in operating low floor buses. The transport dept tooka group of disability rights activists and advocates on kneeling floor buses along the city routes like 26 (Broadway to Iyyappanthangal) and 9M( Adambakkam to T. Nagar).
Mr. Deepak Nathan, activist for differently abled peoples rights( who took part in the trail run) mentioned that if low flooring buses were available in TN it would be superb. In the trial run, many wheelchair bound passengers also participated and they were able to board or get down from the buses in less than a minute. Major corridors were covered in the trial run without any issue.
