India gets Smart on long distance routes

20 January 2012 - Indian authorities have massively invested in new deluxe vehicles, making long distance transport by bus safer and more appealing to citizens in southern India. Long distance bus passengers in southern India will benefit from 3,000 new buses for the state-run long distance bus companies as of February 2012. The new buses will begin appearing on southern India’s roads from February 2012.

The state transport department of Tamil Nadu will be the first to add 473 new ultra-deluxe buses to its long distance routes, which will come as a New Year gift for passengers by replacing more than half of the transport authority’s outdated fleet. On any given day, about 60,000 passengers use State Express Transport Corporation (SETC) buses and this goes up to 100,000 passengers during the festival season.

Noting that the previous government had not introduced even a single bus in SETC’s 910-bus fleet, the transport department pointed out that “most of the current operational fleet have crossed the upper limit of six-and-half years or clocked over 750,000 km, and so have to be phased out.”