JnNURM 1 gave major thrust to this segment as the corporation branded all of the semi low floor buses procured in the scheme as metro express . Last time around we had buses from ashok leyland and tata . while all of the ashokleyland diesel buses were for hyderabad, vijayawada got cng variant of ashok leyland and visakhapatnam,tirupati got tata buses . hyderabad got a few tata s too. while the tata buses were buit by ACGL , all of the CNG AL s were built by MG Auto and others were built by smaller body fabrication units. While the bodies built by MG Auto and ACGL are still sturdy, the ones built by others are almost in shambles. So, this time around the corporation has decided not to hand over the body fabrication duties to third party builders and explore other options considering the corporation's only body fabrication unit at miyapur has a capacity of building only 600 buses in a financial year.
With mixed responses from the ' urban bus specifications (UBS) " , MoUD has prepared a document " urban bus specifications - ii (
UBS-II) for this round of sanctions under JnNURM. The most interesting thing this time is, the push for ITS . The document, UBS-II has specifications for passenger announcement systems, bus tracking technologies which sound good for now considering the concept of ITS is nascent in many of the cities.
Coming to the STAR of this post, the corporation as already mentioned earlier in the post has decided to procure chassis and hand over the body building duties to Ashok Leyland itself. Ashok leyland which in the recent past has made one of the best innovations in urban transport vehicles - Jan Bus has done a wonderful job in churning out a very good product in association with MG Auto. This private fabrication unit always stands out with unique designs and sturdy body.
The bus at first sight has obvious looks of the Jan Bus because of the similar cowl and headlight cluster. This bus is equipped with " Ley Matic" which ashok leyland claims is one of a kind manual-automatic transmission system.. t
his reminds me of those touch cum type phones. Speaking about the interiors, the roof is powder coated steel and the saloon is stainless steel as in the earlier buses. Flooring too is not different. It has the same vinyl flooring in grey color. Hope it is of good quality and will stand the harsh usage. There are two strip of led lights along the aisle on the roof. these for me were too bright .. have to see how they perform on the roads. The seats are same as in the older buses but all of them have arm rests this time. Just wishing people wont peel off the foam on them.
Coming to the exteriors, i've explained about the front, but the rear this time has an integrated tail lamp unlike the last time when there were 4 different slots for the lights. the whole body itself looks boxy and is clean with nice curves unlike the excess curves last time.
Oh ! the dash board and ITS components . There are two CCTV cameras inside the bus for safety and one on the rear to assist the driver. Also, there is one LED board and speakers for passenger information system. As usual there are LED destination boards on the front, side and rear. there is one microphone at the driver seat . All of these are connected to a touch screen on the dash board from where the driver can switch between all of the ITS components . all of this system has been developed and installed by KPIT, Pune.
 |
A.P.S.R.T.C JnNURM New Ashok Leyland METRO EXPRESS Bus.
|
 |
T.S.R.T.C JnNURM New Ashok Leyland METRO EXPRESS Bus.
|
 |
T.S.R.T.C JnNURM New Ashok Leyland METRO EXPRESS Bus.
|
 |
A.P.S.R.T.C jnnurm New Ashok Leyland METRO EXPRESS Bus.
|
 |
A.P.S.R.T.C jnnurm New Ashok Leyand METRO EXPRESS Buses.
|
 |
A.P.S.R.T.C jnnurm New Ashok Leyland METRO EXPRESS Buses.
|
interiors of the new metro express with the led strip lights switched on one side
interiors of the new metro express
LEYMATIC and the control panel on dash board of new metro express
 |
A.P.S.R.T.C jnnurm New Ashok Leyland METRO EXPRESS Bus.
|
 |
A.P.S.R.T.C jnnurm New Ashok Leyland METRO EXPRESS Bus.
|
 |
A.P.S.R.T.C jnnurm New METRO EXPRESS Bus.
A.P.S.R.T.C JnNURM METRO EXPRESS of Chitoor-1 depot
doing Chittor-Tirupati NON-STOP service
A.P.S.R.T.C JnNURM METRO EXPRESS of Chitoor-2 depot
doing Chittor-Devalampeta express service
|
After looking at all of these features, we are blown away by the effort put in to this small package of semi low floor ashok leyland (600mm) bus . Hope these new guys are looked after well by the depots and the ITS components function with out any glitches .
