HYDERABAD: Ramulu drives an autorickshaw between Kukatpally metro station and Allwyn colony. His vehicle is parked under the Kukatpally metro station —where he waits for passengers alighting the blue-white metro coaches — while simultaneously chatting to this reporter. “The buses don’t go into the lanes where I ride my auto-rickshaw,” says a distracted Ramulu, while constantly looking for potential passengers. He waits for a while but customers don’t come pouring out of the station. “The initial craze is all over. Now only few use the metro,” he added. One could easily detect a tinge of hopelessness in his voice.
Ask anyone why they choose not to use the metro and pat comes the reply, in almost all the cases: “It’s costly”. A TSRTC bus can cover a 2 km stretch for Rs 7, has more frequency along the metro corridor than a metro that costs `10 for the same distance with trains that never arrive on time.Meanwhile, all the auto-rickshaws parked illegally under the station, including Ramulu’s, vanish shortly after a city traffic police towing vehicle blares its siren, moments before making an appearance.
The 34-km-long stretch of the Hyderabad metro provides parking bays only for taxi aggregators and that too at select stations, such as Ameerpet interchange. When the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) did an internal study of the metro stations on the eve of their opening, they found that none of the stations had parking bays or access routes for feeder services. Despite the limitations, TSRTC deputed 50 buses to provide last-mile connectivity to the Metro passengers, but still struggles to improve the occupancy ratio. “The buses are running only on select routes that witness occupancy ratio only during office hours. Rest of the time they have to run almost empty,” said an official with TSRTC who did not wish to be named.
Public bike sharing yet to gain pace
The public bike sharing system, operated by Smartbike, is gradually picking steam and has so far managed to gather over 2,000 registrations. “People can register here and use it anywhere in 120 countries where the service is available. There is a good response from the public,” said a Smartbike representative. HMRL also had given parking space for a bike sharing facility at Miyapur to set up 20 bikes at various metro stations that could be hired for rent. The service is yet to catch public’s interest.