CHENNAI: A majority of the 57 lakh Chennaiites who travel by the public transport system are a disgruntled lot. Despite boasting of a fleet of 3,140 buses with different ‘luxury’ categories, the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) has failed to fulfil three of the most vital reasons for its existence: provide complete connectivity, offer punctual services and ensure vehicles are clean.For office-goers, the majority among public transport users, the biggest grouse is the lack of punctuality of buses. “I travel from Royapettah to Ambattur for work. I need to report to work by 11 am, but the problem is I cannot predict when a route 24C bus, which is the only direct bus option, will come. Sometimes, three buses will arrive within 10 minutes, and on other days, we will have to wait up to 30 minutes for a bus. I wait for 15 minutes at the stop and if there is no bus, I will take a share auto. I need to take an auto from home to reach the share auto stop and the entire travel costs me Rs. 55. With a bus, it would cost only `7,” says Nivedha, who works with a private publishing company. On days when she faces a tight schedule, she has no option but to use her two-wheeler, which she rarely prefers, given the traffic at peak hours, she says.Echoing her views is an employee at a blood bank, who says he finds the same problem with the 27C route buses. “There is poor coordination of the starting time of buses. It appears that on some days, they leave the terminus at the same time, so buses follow each other closely and find no takers. The next bus faces the brunt of this poor timing as it gets overcrowded,” he says.While the arterial parts of the city are well-connected by buses, the developing and suburban areas are yet to have a reliable bus system, says Pravin, a 27-year-old commuter. Places likes Aalapakkam near Porur, and Sengundram, which have a sizeable bus-dependant populace, do not have adequate buses, he says. The 49R and 27 routes that would take him to Thiruverkadu and T Nagar, do not run frequently, he rues. “If I want to travel from Maduravoyal to Ambattur, there is a direct 20P bus service. But, it is not a frequent service and so, many times I am forced to take a detour by taking a bus to Koyambedu, from where I should take another bus to Ambattur,” he says.If the quality of roads in Chennai make commuting during the monsoon a nightmare, the city’s buses heighten their travails, says Thirumoorthy.“The deluxe line of buses, 967 of them in the city, are carriers of communicable diseases during the rains,” he explains. “Though these buses are more than twice expensive in comparison to their regular counterparts, their seats are unusable during the rains. They are made of cloth and are wet through the day. Those who use such seats run the risk of contracting diseases,” he says. The success stories of share autos are the telling tales of the failure of MTC, he says, citing the case of the proliferation of share autos at the Velachery railway station.After 8 pm, more than half of the bus commuters use share autos to reach their destinations instead of taking the public transport. Though costlier and more often overcrowded, people prefer these vehicles to unreliable buses, especially after 8 pm, he says.
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