The Atal Indore City Transport Services Limited (AICTSL) resumed 43 buses across the city on Thursday, after 2 months of hiatus due to COVID restrictions. These services have resumed operations along 9 routes in Indore, including Bhawarkuan, Nehru Park, Dewas Naka, MR-10, Aurobindo, Gangwal, Gandhi Nagar among others. The commuter count remained considerably low, thus manageable on the first day of resumption.
Bus ridership likely to scale in the coming days
As per the ridership details, about 12,000 people in Indore travelled via the 43 buses unlocked on Thursday. This stands drastically lower than the total potential of 239 AICTSL buses and the daily footfall of around 1.5 lakh commuters. Indore’s bus network consists of 65 minibuses, 82 city buses, 40 electric buses and 52 e-buses.
Reportedly, only 43 city buses returned to the roads yesterday. Officials have informed that more vehicles, including city buses and i-buses, will be revived here according to the demands of the growing ridership.
The AICTSL Chief Executive Officer said that they expect the ridership to rise gradually in the coming days. For the time being, they had people and families travelling across the city and soon, regular office and school goers will jump the wagon. He also highlighted that most people did not know about the resumption and availed other means of public transport such as auto-rickshaws and taxis.
Safety precautions on public transport
The AICTSL has taken up the task of providing the benefit of hassle-free travel, along with the security of prime safety and sanitisation degree. As a precautionary all 43 buses which were flagged off on Thursday were properly sanitised before and after each trip. The operators permitted an alternate seat arrangement for all travellers unless they were travelling together – as a family.
An AICTSL official informed that the number of passengers in any bus was not more than the number of seats. This allowed adherence to the norms of social distancing. Entry in buses was also denied to all people who were not wearing a face mask.
With inputs from TOI
