The rollout of the KSRTC’s fleet of e-buses in Kochi remains mired in uncertainty even as the agency is ready to add 20 such buses to its fleet of 110 e-buses in Thiruvananthapuram.
Former Transport Minister Antony Raju and KSRTC officials had said that Kochi would get its share of 50 e-buses (procured using Smart Cities Mission funds) in December 2023.
Informed sources said Cochin Smart Mission Limited (CSML) would release funds to procure e-buses, once the KSRTC submitted its response to a list of mandatory conditions that had been specified by the Centre.
Comparison with metro
Highlighting how the introduction of e-buses changed Thiruvananthapuram’s public transport landscape, a high-ranking KSRTC official said daily passenger footfall in the 110 e-buses that were procured for ₹100 crore had now touched 80,000 due to a slew of passenger-friendly measures such as bus-tracking facility, tickets being priced at an affordable rate of ₹10, and scientific scheduling of routes and time. “This is in stark contrast with the daily patronage of 90,000 passengers in the Kochi metro that cost a whopping over ₹7,000 crore. Apart from their low carbon footprint, e-buses brought considerable number of people back to the public transport system in Thiruvananthapuram by reducing congestion and pollution caused by private vehicles and autorickshaws,” he added.
The e-bus fleet also raked in ₹2.88 crore of operational profit within nine months of their launch in April 2023 vis a vis the Kochi metro’s operational profit of ₹5.3 crore in 2022-’23.
Once introduced, e-buses are expected to operate within Kochi city and to suburban towns, thus in turn acting as a feeder network for the metro. The KSRTC had conducted a study on the possible routes where they could be introduced and identified a location at Kalamassery to set up a charging station.
Apart from their definitive advantage of causing nil sound and air pollution, e-buses have a rock-bottom operational cost of ₹4.60 per km, while it is ₹26.4 for diesel buses. This is apart from the much higher maintenance expense of diesel buses owing to wear and tear of their components. E-buses have fewer moving parts resulting in much less wear and tear, making them very affordable to maintain.
Over time, savings from reduced operational (mainly energy expense) and maintenance cost cover the capital investment of around ₹1 crore per e-bus vis a vis ₹35 lakh for diesel buses, sources said.
