Reduction in the MTC buses on many key routes connecting western suburbs with Chennai
Posted on: 02/Sep/2023 9:30:43 AM
Avadi, a very important locality in the western suburbs of Chennai is now making news.
The residents belonging to Avadi have complained that MTC or metropolitan transport corporation have either stopped or reduced the frequency of the buses on many important routes that connect western suburbs with Chennai city.
It must be recalled that before the Coronavirus pandemic struck, MTC had deployed 6 buses along the route 54C (Pattabiram - Poonamallee) to take up 24 trips per day. Now, the number of trips has been reduced to half and this has increased the waiting time of the commuters.
The MTC buses that used to operate along the routes like 153B (Koyambedu- Pandur), 121B (MKB Nagar- Pattabiram) and 536 (Ponneri – Pattabiram) have been removed now. These key routes had decent patronage and there was no reason to withdraw the MTC buses along these routes. This was according to a regular user of the MTC buses here.
It was brought out by MTC that the EPKM or earnings per kilometre was below Rs 25 on most of these routes and it was not economically viable to continue operating the MTC buses.
Issue in reaching transit points:
There is an issue now( due to lack of MTC buses) in reaching the transit points like Ambattur, CMBT Koyambedu, Egmore and Central railway stations etc from the western suburbs. This was according to Mr. T. Sadagopan, an Avadi based resident- activist. He spoke about how many now are forced to use share autos to reach these above said locations. The auto drivers have made use of this opportunity and they have hiked the auto fares.
Now many belonging to the western suburbs of Chennai prefer their own vehicles to reach their destinations. It is learnt that in the last 2 years the RTO in the western parts of Chennai and on the outskirts have registered around 1.9lakhs new vehicles.
