‘Staggered timings for schools, colleges needed to reduce congestion in Vizag city buses’

‘This will ensure comfortable travel for students and optimum utilisation of buses’

The 604 city buses in Visakhapatnam are unable to cater to the needs of commuters, especially during the peak hours. Most of the bus shelters in the city are full of commuters and buses are crowded, right from around 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. on weekdays.

“The overcrowding in city buses is seen only during the peak hours, while at other times there is not much demand. ‘Badi buses’ (RTC buses hired by educational institutions) are used only for one trip each in the mornings and evenings. This is because once the buses drops the students at their schools/colleges, there is no further demand,” says RTC Regional Manager A. Appala Raju.

He suggests staggering of the timings of schools/colleges to enable to ‘Badi buses’ to be operated for at least two trips in the morning and two in the evening. This will enable students to travel comfortably to their schools and back home apart from ensuring optimum utilisation of the buses. The timings of the schools/colleges can be staggered between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. and again from 3 p.m. onwards, he says.

APS RTC is operating a total of 56 ‘Badi buses’ to various educational institutions in Visakhapatnam district. When his attention was brought to the bunching of buses, with four or five buses operating on the same route going one after the other and non-availability of buses in that route for 20 to 30 minutes after that, the Regional Manager attributed it to the high number of traffic signals, which was resulting in delays and overlapping of the timings.

“The lack of synchronisation of traffic signals is another problem, which we have brought to the notice of the authorities concerned at the Traffic Advisory Committee meeting in the past. The non-synchronisation was attributed to technical issues, which we hope will be sorted out soon,” Mr. Appala Raju says.

“The total number of RTC buses in the district is 940. This includes the city buses. The average occupancy rate in the district so far this year is 70%, while it was 64% in 2021, 63% in 2020 and 72% in 2019 (pre-COVID). The use of personal vehicles has increased tremendously during the COVID-19 pandemic and this is continuing even now,” he says.