HYDERABAD: Road accidents involving buses from the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) is being kept under check, making it one of the safest modes of transport in the city.
According to data obtained from the TSRTC, around 227 people were killed between April to December 2019 in accidents involving TSRTC buses. This implies that for every lakh kilometer operated by the TSRTC, the accident rate was 0.06 percent. This is a decrease from the 2018 accident rate of 0.07 percent. It may be mentioned here that September 2018 saw one of the worst bus tragedies involving a TSRTC bus at Kondagattu. Also, 227 deaths over a span of 9 months means that approximately, less than one fatal accident occurred per day in the last 9 months, making TSRTC a relatively safe public transport undertaking.
“Our accident rates are very low when compared to the accident rates in our road transport corporations across the country. We have successively reported 0.09% to 0.06 % of accident rate, while the rest of the country has these over 0.1% or more. Our drivers are some of the most thorough and well trained in the country,” noted K Rajendra Prasad, Chief Traffic Manager, TSRTC. A majority of these accidents also seem to happen in rural areas. Since urban areas have short travel routes with persistent traffic jams, the scope of accidents is lower, whereas in rural areas the likelihood of accidents is higher owing to highways, lack of signals, crossing paths, service roads etc.
To fix this issue, officials have now reported nearly 400+ black spots that the drivers have identified to various government bodies. Minister for Transport P Ajay Kumar will soon be felicitating around 12 drivers for their zero accident record and six depots for their low accident rates during Road Safety Week.