In view of covering newer areas of the city and increasing communicability between those areas and the main city,Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service (AMTS) plans to develop new feeder routes on the periphery of the city beyond Sarkhej-Gandhinagar Highway. This will enable people to get faster access to those areas. Transport Committee chairman Babubhai Zadaphia on Monday said that in the beginning at least 10 new feeder routes would be introduced to aid BRTS operations. This would require procurement of at least 400 new buses to take the fleet. strength to 1,200 to from the present 800 buses. We are going to get Euro III or Euro IV compliant buses to control pollution levels, he said. The municipal corporation is trying to get funds from under JNNURM,he added. The 10 initial routes will include Hathijan to Vaishnodevi Temple via Naroda-Dehgam Circle,Gor No Kuva to Ramol and Bapunagar to Sarkhej,he said. He expressed the hope that all these 10 routes would become operational in one year. .Our efforts will focus on the lower and middle income groups to meet their social and economic as well as religious commuting needs, he said. Zadaphia said the present 10-km outer limit of AMC would be sought to be increased to 25 km with a view to expanding the service coverage to new areas through the feeder routes and bring commuters to BRT stations. They may cross the premium routes of BRT in exceptional cases,he said. At present,the AMTS incurs a daily loss of Rs 55 lakh on account of increase in fuel prices and purchase of spare parts. Against this,the daily income is around Rs 35 lakh a day with the current strength of 775 buses. This should go up to Rs 55 lakh per day with addition in the fleet, Zadaphia said. He said the concept of feeder routes to ferry commuters on the outer city limits had proved to be successful in other cities like Hyderabad. About the additional staffing requirement,he said the crew would be brought in by the private operators,he said.
