LOVE of Z: April 2017

Sunday, April 30, 2017

New buses for "Agency"

TSRTC and APSRTC combined have not more than 23000 buses. Remove the ones serving Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam and Warangal cities, there are about 18000 buses doing intercity and village services of which 10,000 buses are of ordinary class which connect villages with nearest towns. Even after covering 70% of road network in Hyderabad city, Telangana State Road Transport Corporation’s Greater Hyderabad zone struggles with huge transit deserts. This network is served by a *whopping* 3500 buses.

Now imagine connectivity to all of the villages. If Hyderabad is struggling to have proper service with 3500 buses how are all of the numerous villages in Telugu states connected with 10,000 buses. According to APSRTC and TSRTC there are more than 1000 villages in telugu states that are still not connected. For a village to be considered connected, it is enough to have just one bus a day.

Gandikota, a popular tourist destination just 15 km from Jammalamadugu, gets just one bus every three hours and sunday service is not guaranteed. Gandikota is so close to the town yet so far from accessing services in the town. This is still a better example but there are villages that still get just one bus a day.

If connectivity is this bad in the plains, what about the villages and numerous thandas in the “agency” areas of Visakhapatnam and Vijayanagaram districts. Unlike the villages in the plains connecting these places is a challenge. Though APSRTC has been trying to connect these places with Midi buses operating out of Srungavarapukota depot, there are still villages that need to be connected.

Also, the quality of service has fell down over the last decade with no new buses inducted into the fleet. All of the buses scrapped because of their age have only been replaced by used saptagiri express buses from tirumala - tirupati. Finally, there is a refreshing change. APSRTC, with funds from SC ST Subplan has purchased 20 new midi buses for serving the far flung villages in “agency” area. Branded Telugu Velugu, these are the first entry level ordinary buses in APSRTC with a single front windshield. As with all the other buses, the buses have been fitted with on board GPS decimating information via PIS at bus stand and app.

The new buses will ply from Paderu and Sileru to Bakuru, Jolaput, Chintapalli and Gudem among other Villages. These are places that are already connected by at least one bus a day. With introduction of these new buses, we only hope there are more buses to Villages that are still left unconnected.

CORONA - The New "Garuda"

Almost an year back when there was news that APSRTC was going to launch a new brand Krishnaveni and will use Corona buses for it, we were surprised. Many thought this will be a replacement/ rebranded version of Indra buses. Of the many products that Corona, a pune based company that claims to offer chassis body integration, only sleeper buses were successful. When this news came out, we thought APSRTC is trying to give sleepers a shot again. In fact, they did try buying sleeper buses with 2+1 berth arrangement but the transport department said no owing to safety concerns. A few months after this news, everyone almost forgot APSRTC was going to get Corona buses. Surprisingly, Corona had an update on its website claiming APSRTC has placed order for about 100 buses.

The last new buses were added to garuda fleet was in 2011 a few weeks before Garuda Plus buses were introduced. After the introduction of Amaravati buses in 2016, we were almost sure that Garuda is a dying brand and no more new buses will be added in this category. Most of the 11Z buses were getting scrapped and 29Z buses were struggling to serve even after major repairs. We thought this also made sense because no operator in telugu states was buying 12M dual axle buses any more. Multi axle buses had become the norm. APSRTC surprised everyone with adding 20 Corona buses to its fleet.

A.P.S.R.T.C Brand New CORONA Garuda.

After KingLong(Cerita), Volvo, AL - Luxura, Isuzu, it's the entry of "CORONA" into the Garuda Fleet. In Collaboration with "Deccan Auto" located in the Neighbour State's Capital Hyderabad, CORONA has delivered the First Batch of 20 Buses to the Corporation, Costing Approx. 65-70lakh each

Alloted to the Core Depots of Vijayawada(VJA) & Autonagar(ATNR), these Brand New Beauties are Initially to be deployed on Vijayawada - Hyderabad ; Vijayawada - Bengaluru & Vijayawada - Chennai Routes.

APSRTC’s earlier attempts at using buses of brands other than Volvo in the Garuda fleet were not really successful. For passengers, Garuda meant Volvo and to be frank many referred to them as just Volvo buses rather than Garuda buses. Let us wait and watch how these buses perform and if passengers will accept these as Garudas.

A.P.S.R.T.C Brand New CORONA Garuda.