With a daily ridership of over one lakh, Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT) achieved a major milestone to become the leading public transport provider in the City. The transport facility crossed the milestone - 1,01,881 passengers using the bus service on October 14. On an average 70,000 people took Mo Bus daily till August and 80,000 travelled per day in September.
Spokesperson, CRUT, Dipti Mahapatro said though the ridership was around 33,000 daily and revenue came down to `5 lakh post-Fani, consistent efforts led to rise in ridership in September with an average revenue of `11.6 lakh per day.
After the amended Motor Vehicle Act was implemented, there was sudden rise in passengers which touched around 97,000 on September 6 and 94,000 on September 8.
“The target was to make Mo Bus services available to one lakh passengers in Bhubaneswar, Khurda and Cuttack by December 2019. But, it has been achieved before the first anniversary and the credit goes to the riders who trusted the service and gave constant feedback for improvement,” Mahapatro said.
In November last year, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had inaugurated the Mo Bus service to provide sustainable, comfortable and economically viable mode of transport for people of the Capital region.
Currently, the CRUT has a fleet of 200 buses. The network will be expanded in next three months as there is a demand for more buses and 50 old buses will be added to the fleet after refurbishment, for which the work has started already. Of the 50 old buses, 30 are from Cuttack, 10 each are from Balasore and Bhubaneswar.
Meanwhile, 50 electric buses (e-buses) have been sectioned by the Department of Heavy Industry under FAME India scheme phase-II for intra-city and intercity operation to give a push to clean mobility in public transportation.
