Passengers throng five bus termini to proceed to native places for Deepavali festival

Chennai bus termini witness huge rush as passengers travel home to celebrate Deepavali. 86,275 tickets booked online this year, 10,975 buses operated from Nov 9-11. 1.36 lakh passengers travelled on 1st day, 2.23 lakh pre-booked SETC buses. Transport Dept. operated 10,500 buses last year.

Passengers bound for their native places to celebrate Deepavali festival thronged the five bus termini on Friday.

The Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus (CMBT) in Koyambedu witnessed heavy footfall with officials of the Transport department expecting a huge rush on Saturday. Crowds were also seen in large numbers in the remaining four bus termini of Poonamallee, Madhavaram, K.K. Nagar and Tambaram MEPZ. 

A senior official said this year, 86,275 tickets were booked online in the city, the highest number so far, against 66,822 tickets last year. He said the online booking window was still open and they expected to see a record for the highest number of seats booked online. 

This year, the Transport department had announced the operation of 10,975 buses, comprising both regular and special services from the city from November 9 to 11. While the number of regular bus services to be operated stood at 6,300, the number of special buses was 4,675. 

The Transport department on Thursday, the first day of the three-day special bus operation, had operated a total of 2,734 buses carrying 1.36 lakh passengers. Similarly, more than 3,500 buses were operated on Friday and another 4,000 buses would be operated on Saturday. 

A total of 2.23 lakh passengers have made pre-bookings for travelling in the State Express Transport Corporation (SETC) buses.  The Transport department had last year operated more than 10,500 buses — both special and regular — for three days from October 21 to 23.