KOCHI: In the wake of increasing instances of accidents involving private buses due to rash driving, the state government is all set to increase the interval between two services to a minimum of 10 minutes. “Private buses are indulging in competitive driving with the gap between two services being 2-3 minutes.
As per the advice of the Transport Commissioner and the Road Safety Commission, the gap between two private bus services will be increased to 10 minutes. The move is aimed at reducing mishaps,” Transport Minister K B Ganesh Kumar told reporters here.
The same will be applicable to buses operating town-to-town services. However, the government is also mulling increasing the interval between two city bus services to five minutes.
The measure are being introduced following a study undertaken by the Road Safety Commission based on factors like accidents, deaths and speeding instances. The commission is expected to submit a letter to the government to implement the same in the next few days.
“The decision will be implemented in a week’s time. We’ve temporarily stopped issuing permits as part of implementing this...Even if the bus owners go to court against the decision, we will present the current scenario, especially accident rates involving private buses, before the court. The measure is to save the lives of innocent people,” the minister said.
According to him, the move to eliminate unhealthy competition will benefit the private bus operators themselves in the long run.
“I’ve consciously taken measures to avoid competition between the private and KSRTC buses. The move saw the collection of both KSRTC and private buses improve. Similarly, when the MVD enforced the setting up of cameras inside private buses, they opposed it at first. However, the bus owners were surprised that the same resulted in an increase in collection amount as the bus crew couldn’t indulge in unfair practices like embezzlement,” Ganesh Kumar said.
The government has already tightened permit cancellation procedures in the wake of a sharp rise in fatal private bus accidents, by granting Regional Transport Authorities (RTA) the power to suspend permits for reckless driving.