Delhi: You can soon book an AC bus ride on phone

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government is planning to rope in private players to introduce app-based air-conditioned bus services. The transport department has drafted a policy in this regard, say sources.

“A presentation was made before the chief minister on Friday, and it has been decided that a committee would be formed to finalise a detailed policy. City Taxi Scheme 2017 was also discussed in the meeting,” a transport department official said.

Delhi needs at least 10,000 buses, but DTC has just 3,944 buses in its fleet while the DIMTS-run cluster scheme has 1,612. DTC alone ferries about 33 lakh passengers a day. Though 2,000 buses would be procured in 2018, the transport department feels buses run by private transporters must be included and regulated to augment the public transport infrastructure.

The department plans to have air-conditioned buses of different sizes of private players, which would be accessible to users through mobile applications. The fare of these buses are likely to be on the higher side.

“There are private aggregators offering such services but they are not following the legal way,” the official said.

The transport department had earlier this year cracked down on app-based bus service aggregators, claiming they were not following prescribed norms and operating illegally. While stage carriage permits are required to run bus services, the aggregators had contract carriage permit that doesn’t allow them to pick and drop passengers from multiple points. “We want to offer commuters a deluxe or premium bus experience so that they are able to leave private vehicles and use public transport,” said the official.

In a recent study on strategies to improve Delhi’s bus system, Centre for Science and Environment said that bus services introduced by aggregators resulted in people shifting from personal transport to buses, something that public transport buses haven’t been able to achieve.

The study says that the experience of booking, locating the bus and travel is as swift and convenient as that of a chauffeur-driven car, making these services popular, particularly with the tech-savvy users in the age group of 22-40.

The study says the existing regulatory framework for these services is not very clear and regulations need to keep pace with technological innovations.