THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: To woo more people to public transportation, the Kerala State Road Transportation Corporation (KSRTC) has introduced city circular trips (Hop on -Hop off services) to facilitate daily commuters. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday launched the services at a function held here.
The authorities have also launched cashless ticketing and hassle-free transportation for daily commuters connecting government offices, hospitals and shopping areas.
However, the employees are apprehensive about the initiative and concerned about the routes selected for the trips. Some feel that the initiative would lead to more financial loss for the cash-strapped KSRTC.
The services, which will operate clockwise and anti-clockwise, would enable the passengers to use any number of trips in the city circular services paying Rs 50 for 24 hours.
It is learned that KSRTC has lost around 40 per cent of their passengers after the pandemic outbreak. It is hoping to bring back the lost commuter base through the initiative.
According to officials, the services would be operated in such a way that buses are available at stops every 15 minutes during peak hours and at 30-minute intervals during off-peak hours.
Buses plying on each route will have different colours including red, blue, magenta, yellow, violet, brown and green.
According to officials, in the first phase, the city circular service would be expanded to include eight more routes. Each service would cover 200 km per day. However, a section of employees has raised concerns about the initiative.
“They are using colours instead of route displaying boards which would create a lot of confusion among the commuters. The routes picked for the service are also unviable. They should have operated the services connecting main roads or NH. We had conducted other services also on the route and later had to stop because of revenue loss,” said an official of KSRTC. The official also raised concern about conducting services in narrow routes.
“Non-AC buses are huge and are meant for big roads. This will create traffic congestion in some routes. Also, most of the buses being used for this service are almost 10 years old. All the financial burden would come down on the employees,” said the official.