1,000 more Volvo buses may hit roads soon

1,000 more Volvo buses may hit roads soon

The Hindu

Committee to take up pilot study on adopting the buses to Indian conditions

# BMTC wants the horsepower of buses reduced and transmission changed to manual
# Government urged to offer the buses under a special grant
# Plea to provide dedicated lanes to run the high capacity buses

BANGALORE: Bangalore may see the advent of at least 1,000 new no-frills Volvo buses in coming months.

A joint committee of Volvo Bus Corporation and the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) will study the feasibility of such a deployment with reduced costs of buses.

This was decided at a luncheon meeting attended by Chief Minister Kumaraswamy, Transport Minister N. Cheluvarayaswamy and Rune Lundberg, senior vice-president, Volvo Bus Corporation, Sweden. The Chief Minister was keen on increasing the Volvo bus fleet in the city to reduce the number of private vehicles on the roads.

Official sources told The Hindu that the committee would undertake a pilot study and find out what best could be done to adopt Volvo buses to Indian conditions. It would submit its report to the Government in four weeks, based on which the Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister would make further recommendations, sources said.

The BMTC is putting forth two major issues — higher horsepower (270 HP) and automatic transmission — responsible for high-cost of operation as well as high cost of buses. It wants the horsepower to be reduced to 180 and the transmission to be changed to manual to achieve higher mileage, to reduce the cost of buses and to adapt them to Indian conditions. At present, BMTC derives a mileage of 1.7 km a litre of diesel and it wants the mileage to increase to at least 2.5 km.

BMTC spends Rs. 74 lakh for one Volvo bus, of which Rs. 24 lakh goes towards central and State taxes.

The corporation says it could deploy more Volvo buses if the cost is reduced to Rs. 30 lakh (before taxes) after incorporating the desired changes.

The corporation has also been urging the central and State Governments to offer these 1,000 Volvo buses under a special grant.

The Volvo Corporation argued that unless the traffic conditions were improved in Bangalore, the project would not be successful. It urged the Government to provide dedicated lanes to run the high capacity buses with synchronised traffic signals to offer priority to public transport.

Mr. Kumaraswamy and Mr. Cheluvarayaswamy have agreed to look at the issue and come out with some solution, sources added.

Increase in speed

The BMTC pointed out that if the speed of buses was increased by one per cent, there would be a geometrical increase (by 1.3 per cent) in the number of passengers boarding the public transport. Hence, if public transport is given priority, private vehicle users would definitely come towards BMTC, the corporation told the dignitaries.