NIGHT RIDER - Sleeper भी Seater भी |

With "Sleeper cum Seater" Buses taking over most routes operated by private operators, the State owned Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation(APSRTC) was loosing a significant amount of potential premium class passengers. In an attempt to attract such passengers, APSRTC inducted "Sleeper cum Seater" buses in its fleet and branded them 

Night Rider - A/c Seat Cum Sleeper

Like icing on the Cake, with a touch of it's unmatched safety records APSRTC launched  an initial Fleet of Dozen Buses. Of these, Half are 42 Capacity Veera V7 Coaches (20Berths + 22Seats) and the rest are 48 Capacity Veera V7 Coaches (15Berths + 33Seats).

A.P.S.R.T.C Night Rider - A/C Seat Cum Sleeper

Fare :

Model	Upper Berth	Lower Berth	Seater
42 Capacity(20Berths + 22Seats)	Rs. 200/-	Rs. 220/-	Rs. 171/-
48 Capacity(15Berths + 33Seats)	Rs. 200/-	No Lower Berths	Rs. 171/-

A.P.S.R.T.C Night Rider - A/C Seat Cum Sleeper

                  

These 12 new buses were alloted to 5 different depots across the state and are serving the following 14 Schedules every day :

Depot	Route(Origin - Destination)	Service no.	Sch. Departure	Sch. Arrival
Amalapuram	Amalapuram - BHEL	2574	20:15	08:00
	Amalapuram - RGIA	2562	21:00	08:15
	BHEL - Amalapuram	2573	19:45	07:00
	RGIA - Amalapuram	2563	20:00	06:45
Kakinada	Kakinada - Tirupati	2639	17:15	06:30
	Tirupati - Kakinada	2640	18:15	07:05
Kurnool-1	Kurnool - Vijayawada	6277	22:30	05:50
	Vijayawada - Kurnool	6278	22:00	05:20
Vijayawada	Vijayawada - Miyapur	3599	22:45	04:45
	Vijayawada - Miyapur	3838	23:50	05:50
	Miyapur - Vijayawada	35276	10:30	17:00
	Miyapur - Vijayawada	3584	13:30	20:00
Visakhapatnam	Maddilapalem - Tirupati	3479	14:30	07:35
	Tirupati - Visakhapatnam	3480	16:15	08:10

* Schedules as on 14/07/19

A.P.S.R.T.C Night Rider - A/C Seat Cum Sleeper

A.P.S.R.T.C Night Rider - A/C Seat Cum Sleeper

                         

The concept was a success in no time and Statistics prove that these Riders are presently reaping the Highest margins after the prestigious AMARAVATIs. In few instances Night Riders are outperforming AMARAVATIs too w.r.t margin per/Km. Considering the Success of the product with a constant O.R of 80+ the corporation is now planning to introduce more number of Night Riders into the Fleet.

Depot	Buses	Kmpl	Earnings per/Km	Cost per/km	Margin per/Km
Amalapuram	4 Buses  48 Capacity(33Seats + 15Berths)	3.7	Rs. 67.29	Rs. 42.97	Rs. 24.32
Kakinada	2 Buses  42 Capacity(22Seats + 20Berths)	3.53	Rs. 67.29	Rs. 46.49	Rs. 20.80
Kurnool-1	2 Buses  48 Capacity(33Seats + 15Berths)	3.78	Rs. 65.13	Rs. 51.51	Rs. 13.62
Vijayawada	2 Buses  42 Capacity(22Seats + 20Berths)	3.76	Rs. 72.27	Rs. 43.59	Rs. 28.68
Visakhapatnam	2 Buses  42 Capacity(22Seats + 20Berths)	3.49	Rs.65.15	Rs. 45.75	Rs. 19.4

 * All Details are as upto May’19(3Months of Launch)

A.P.S.R.T.C Night Rider - A/C Seat Cum Sleeper of Vijayawada Depot en route Miyapur - Vijayawada.

A.P.S.R.T.C Night Rider - A/C Seat Cum Sleeper

Have a HAPPY & SAFE Journey!!

LOVE of Z - Celebrating Public Transport

Depots in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh

A while back we had made a map with all bus depots in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. It looks.. pretty ? 

Anyway, idea was to make something better and useful. A map you can interact with. We observed, a lot of you get confused by depot names, codes and regions. It was difficult for us as well. So, here you go. A map with all depots containing Zone, Region and District information.

How to use the map :

Each depot has its own marker on this map. Hover on the marker for depot name and click on the same for more details like District, Zone, Region, and depot code. Write to us incase you think more data points can be added. We will try to make this map better. 

FAQs

What is a depot code ?

Each depot has a 3 or 4 word abbreviation for ease in identification. For example, Dilsukhnagar is DSNR and Mancherial is MNCL. These codes are painted on front and back of the bus. You can use these to identify depot and complain about or praise the service :) 

What are Zones and Regions ?

For administrative ease, TSRTC is divided in 3 zones and 11 regions. 

Zones :
TSRTC is divided in three Zones - Greater Hyderabad, Hyderabad and Karimnagar.

• Greater Hyderabad Zone (GHZ) looks after depots operating city buses* in Hyderabad Metropolitan Region. Hyderabad and Karimnagar Zones look after depots operating long distance and rural buses across Telangana.
  *Some depots in GHZ have started operating long distance buses but their number remains small.
• Hyderabad zone comprises of depots from five old southern districts including Hyderabad, Mahabubnagar, Medak, Nalgonda and Rangareddy.
• Karimnagar zone comprises of five old southern districts Karimnagar, Warangal, Adilabad, Khammam and Nizamabad.

Regions :

Three zones are further divided into eleven regions. 

• Nine of the ten old districts barring Hyderabad district is a region.
• All depots within the boundaries of these nine old districts report to the Regional Manager's office at their respective district head quarters. For example, all depots in old Karimnagar district report to the the regional manager's officer at Karimnagar.
• Depots operating interstate, rural and intercity buses originating from Hyderabad in old Hyderabad and Rangareddy districts report to regional manager's office at Rangareddy district head quarters in MGBS, Hyderabad.
• Regions in Greater Hyderabad Zone : Hyderabad and Secunderabad
• Regions in Hyderabad Zone : Mahabubnagar, Medak, Nalgonda and Rangareddy
• Regions in Karimnagar Zone : Karimnagar, Waranagal, Adilabad, Khammam and Nizamabad

Make way for Electric Buses !

Exactly seven months after they arrived in Hyderabad, Sunil Sharma - VC&MD, TSRTC launched first batch of 40 electric buses on 05th march 2019. Made by China based BYD's Indian partner Olectra greentech, these buses can travel up to 300 kilometers in single charge. This launch takes the total number of BYD buses in India to 108. This is also the biggest fleet of electric buses any city has launched till date.

Posing with the star, our team member Rakshit Pullluri
Rakshit reported live from this historic event. 

Some of you might have noticed, these buses don't have the iconic alphabet Z in their registration numbers. Why ? you might ask. Well, TSRTC does not own these buses. Given the paucity of funds and lack of experience in operating electric buses, the corporation decided to get the first lot of buses on Gross Cost Model. 

This is not the first time the corporation is doing something like this. Many rural buses and some 600 city buses in Hyderabad are operated under the "hire" scheme. In this model, an agreement is signed between TSRTC and buses operators who make the bus available for an assured number of kilometers. The operator owns and maintains the bus at their own cost. They also recruit the driver and pay them. The corporation then pays the operator a fixed sum per kilometer. 

All 40 buses are expected to serve Airport routes. With most routes starting from JBS, TSRTC has decided to house 20 buses in Cantonment depot. Remaining 20 will serving IT corridor and west of the city will be operated out of Miyapur 2 depot. Adequate charging infrastructure has been provided at both depots to recharge the buses while not in service. Special parking sheds have also been built to protect the charging stations from sun and rain. As said before, these buses take not more than 4 hours reach full charge and can run up to 300 km on a single charge. 

Extensive trials have been carried out before launch. Don't worry, these buses will make your journey only better. Here are some pictures of the buses and their drivers :)

Waiting for the big moment

Chilling in the sun before launch 

Posing for pictures :)

Charging station

Heading out after the launch 

Crew and representatives from Olectra BYD posing for a group picture

That is it from us.
What do you think about these buses ? Let us know on our social media ! 

Pictures : Rakshit Pulluri

Text : Ratnam

Old or New ? Re Build - Part 1

This bus looks brand new right ?

What if I told you it is actually seven years old

and it used to look like this ?

When new buses are purchased, it is expected they will serve for about 10 lakh kilometers. However, thanks to road conditions and minor accidents - many buses cannot make it past half way. The windows start rattling, flooring is broken and exteriors look like they will fall off anytime. Now, this does not mean they have lived their life and deserve to be scrapped. Many buses still have it in them to continue serving for a few more years. But how can they do it looking like ugly boxes from 1920.

Enter bus “Re-Build”. If you don’t know already, many buses we use still are built in house by the corporation, sometimes by private coach builders. Like I said, many of these buses go through a lot and need some attention to increase their life. Old buses are often examined for mechanical problems and assessed for what is left of them. If the corporation believes the buses can continue to serve, they are sent for complete overhaul / rebuilding.

Until recently, most of the rebuilding work was taken up at the corporations’ in house zonal workshops. Zonal workshops carry out major repairs required and stabilize the chassis before a new body is built. TSRTC has zonal workshops at Uppal and Karimnagar where as APSRTC has them at Nellore, Kadapa, Vijayawada and Vizianagaram. Most zonal workshops use frames from scrapped buses and often source parts from other buses to put together a new body. While it might look like picking up scraps for nothing, we believe that is of no shame for a corporation that is looking to save some  cash every minute.

While Zonal workshops get the job done, rebuilt buses return to being rattling old boxes after less than 5 lakh kilometers on road. To solve this and build better buses, the corporation turned to their own body building unit (bus body works, bbu) in Miyapur. BBU started off with rebuilding last gen blue Metro Express buses. Following the success of rebuilding city buses, TSRTC is getting most of its old super luxury buses rebuilt at BBU. After a drop in new chassis procurement, BBU also rebuilt JnNURM metro express buses for Hyderabad. Meanwhile, APSRTC upgraded its Zonal workshops to build BBU quality bodies on old buses. As procurement of new super luxury buses increased, both TSRTC and APSRTC increased the rate of rebuilding old buses as Pallevelugu - entry level service in rural areas.

Believe, you can be anything. What if you are an old super luxury, What if the city folks dont want your services anymore. You can always come back home, be with your buddies while supporting the people who need you most. Should you ask for more ? Following are a few pictures of rebuilt Super Luxury buses from Adilabad and Nirmal.

Love or hate the transformation, let us know.

Like the collection, show the team some love on their Facebook page, Public Transport from Nirmal

Follow LOVEofZ on Facebook and Instagram if you want to know how bus fans identify rebuilt buses !