BENGALURU: Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) will roll out 737 new city buses by the first week of August in order to provide better connectivity in medium and small cities of the state.
KSRTC officials told Express that the buses are modern with facilities such as CCTV cameras and panic buttons, rear-view cameras for drivers and voice announcement system with an LED display. The buses will also have a ‘passenger request stop buzzer’ that will allow passengers to request the driver to stop the bus.
The new buses will also operate in Mangaluru, KGF, Udupi, Chikkamagalur, Shivamogga, Ramanagaram, Tumakuru, Kolar and Chitradurga.
“This is the first time we are providing panic buttons in our buses for women to use in case of an emergency. The CCTV cameras and panic buttons will ensure safety of women passengers, especially in the rural areas of the state,” said KSRTC managing director Rajender Kumar Kataria. He said movement of these buses would be monitored from a centralised control room with a GPS facility. The way it works is when the panic button is pressed by the driver, an alert signal is sent to the centralised control room of KSRTC and also to the nearest police station.
Kataria said the new city buses are expected to help thousands of passengers in smaller cities in the state who are now forced to pay huge amount to travel by private vehicles including autos, jeeps or maxi cabs.
“The new city buses will provide safe, affordable and comfortable journies to the passengers,” he said. He said the buses will have a passenger seating capacity of 35 to 60. At present, KSRTC has 540 city buses that ply in medium and small cities that serve an average of 3.5 lakh passengers every day.
In October 2015, a BPO employee was gang-raped in Bengaluru when she hailed a van to drop her off from work. This incident brought into focus the highly unsafe condition of commute for women passengers.
Women passengers welcomed the KSRTC’s proposal. K Smitha, a resident of Kollegala in Mysuru, said, “There are no adequate government buses to areas like Chamaraja Nagar, Malvalli and Mandya. So we have to depend on private buses but their drivers mostly into rash driving which end up in several accidents.” She said most private vans and auto rickshaws are either congested or they charge a premium from the commuters.