Road ahead: Improved public transport and results, says Gopal Rai

There will be circular roads as well as straight routes for DTC buses.

public transport, DTDC bus, better transport, odd even policy

Gopal Rai

Do you believe the first year was satisfactory?

We had apprehensions and faced criticism for introducing schemes such as odd-even and car-free day. Opponents thought we would fail, but people supported these schemes. It is after car-free day that we were able to think of odd-even and implement it. Had it not been for car-free (initiative), we would not have found a solution to Delhi’s air pollution. I believe the next year will yield many results and witness qualitative improvement in public transport.

How are you trying to improve public transport, now that the government has decided to go ahead with odd-even policy?

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We have started work on procuring more buses. There will be an addition of 1,000 buses to the DTC fleet by April-end. These will be AC buses.

Another 1,000 will be added to the cluster. We have planned to bring 1,000 more buses in the premium segment.

There will be no standing facility in premium buses. All older DTC buses will be phased out by year-end.

Are you looking at any special technology in buses to make them more eco-friendly?

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We will have 100 electric buses this year. We are talking to interested parties… The second would be biofuel. Other countries have made fuel by using sewage treatment plants.

What are the plans for the next year ?

We will be working on semi-BRTs. There will be circular roads as well as straight routes for DTC buses.

Minimum time for frequency of bus service would be two to three minutes maximum. These will be called trunk feeder buses. We will be making elevated roads and two multi-storied bus depots.

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