The 2022-23 fiscal year has started on a bright note for the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC), which has been looking for new avenues to augment its revenue.
“Between April and August this year, the RTC buses registered 72% occupancy ratio (OR) when compared to 60% registered in the corresponding period last year,” APSRTC Vice-Chairman and Managing Director Ch. Dwaraka Tirumala Rao told the media on Thursday.
Exploring non-ticket revenue modes, the corporation introduced door delivery parcel service in cargo sector on September 1 last year, with an initial cap of 5 kg on the parcels. Marking completion of one year of the service, a special drive was launched between July 25 and August 24 to promote bookings. “A total of 1,79,869 door delivery parcels were booked during the period, against an average of 972 in a month,” he said, adding that last year fiscal, the corporation generated a revenue of ₹122 crore from the service.
Tenders were called for to improve passengers amenities and inclusion of 998 hired buses in the RTC fleet, Mr. Rao said, adding that plans were afoot to acquire 1,000 new ‘hired buses’ by December.
In view of incidents of passengers getting injured while alighting or boarding buses, it was decided to install retro-fit pneumatic doors to all buses and the project was estimated to cost ₹10 crore, he said.
Last year, 1,285 Palle Velugu buses were renovated at a cost of ₹15 crore. This year, ₹25 crore would be spent on giving a facelift to 1100 Express, Super Luxury and Ultra Deluxe buses. There was also a proposal to introduce 62 non a/c sleeper buses which would be called STAR Liner (Sleep Travel and Relax), said Mr. Rao.
Special buses
The number of special buses to be operated by the RTC during Dasara festival this year from October 5 would be increased to 4,000 when compared to last year’s 2,340, he said.
To ground new projects under the Built-Operate-Transfer (BOT) mode, the APSRTC is planning to acquire vacant land on lease for 15 years. “Under this scheme, tenders have been called for development of Autonagar and Raj Vihar bus stations in Kurnool. The corporation has also partnered with the National Highways Logistics Management for development of the Tirupati Central bus station into an intermodal bus station,” said Mr. Rao.
He said the APSRTC would operate 100 electric buses on Tirumala-Tirupati ghat road, Tirupati-Nellore, Madanapalle and Kadapa routes.
Unified Ticketing System
“We have proposed to implement a Unified Ticketing System (UTS) replacing the offline TIMs with online e-POS (Electronic Point of Sale). UTS is a single stop solution for all services offered by the APSRTC though a single web application and a mobile app,” he said.
The pilot project was implemented in Vijayawada and Guntur-1 depots for a month and around 10,000 crew had been trained for successful implementation of this project, he added.
