Straphangers United

Apparently, Chennai’s Metropolitan Transport Corporation has decided that its overpriced, underutilised fleet of Volvo buses can be allowed to rust away, so that the tax-payer can be billed for the next set of “super luxury” buses.

Take a look at this one, operating on Anna Salai (Mount Road).

Quite obviously, it is quickly descending into a rusty pit. What a shame!

MTC's minuscule Volvo fleet is rapidly sliding into neglect and disrepair

This blog has been arguing for quite sometime that the archaic fare collection methods of the Metropolitan Transport Corporation need to be changed in line with the National Urban Transport Policy objectives.

In the absence of such modernisation, a boorish, ill-tempered, rude and unprofessional employee culture at the MTC continues to act against the cause of public transport.

The latest instance of this was witnessed at P.Orr and Sons bus stop on Anna Salai (Mount Road) on Feb 27. An out-of-town couple was “caught” travelling without tickets and asked to cough up Rs.200 as fine by the overzealous checking inspectors. Never mind that all the buses passing through at that time of evening were overloaded way over the transport permits.

The MTC does not acknowledge that buying tickets on board is inefficient. It performed an eye-wash some years ago by deploying stand conductors, but quietly gave in to the pressure of its on-the-bus crew, who get a cash incentive on the bag collections each day. I understand that in the case of services with higher fares, the incentive percentage gets reduced.

Back to the problem of the couple, it was really distressing as they tried to preserve whatever dignity they could, when the checking crew made them look like pocket-pickers caught in the act, and many onlookers were gazing. Without demur, they handed over the money that was demanded. Some members of the public were visibly angry with the MTC staff, who are not known for either their sense of fair-play or for genuine concern for rules that govern MTC operations.

It is a shame that the city of Chennai has such crude and unreasonable public transport systems, where buses are overcrowded, and ticket checkers deliberately wait at a bus stop that is a stage, knowing fully well that there would be a few passengers who are unable to purchase a ticket.

The MTC and the mandarins running public transport from Fort St. George owe it to the tax-payers to reform themselves, and provide a genuinely people-friendly bus system. The political rulers should also realise that there is no point waving for pictures, when they preside over such a decrepit system.

Here are the pictures of the couple, part of an album, that hopefully will catch the eye of the rulers whom people such as these have elected.

MTC CHECKING CREW FLEECES TOURIST

A slideshow story of a couple of passengers on an MTC bus getting acquainted with the corporation’s “checking squad” has drawn an unusual reaction from a reader.
He has objected to the depiction of Chennai in such bad light, and asked that the picture-story be either removed or made “private” (not visible on the web).
This blog will do neither.
I believe the series of pictures taken at Anna Salai’s P.Orr and Sons stop, of a blind man and a tourist being surprised by a posse of checking staff and asked to cough up Rs.100 fine is a telling representation of all that is wrong with Chennai transport and the Metropolitan Transport Corporation.
I would again draw attention to the persistent demand that the MTC should be more interested in collecting fares, and not making bus travel an ordeal.
Now that the Lok Sabha elections are approaching, if you are indeed concerned about the state of Chennai’s bus transport, do make the following demand to all political parties, starting with the UPA Government chief constituents, the DMK-Congress alliance, that made tall promises of a revolution using the National Urban Transport Policy, but failed to deliver.
We demand:

• That the Unified Transport Authority in Chennai begin work immediately to bring rail, bus and feeder transport under its umbrella.
• That MTC make available a continuously running series of pre-paid tickets, of the daily, weekly and monthly types.
• The tickets should be available widely, daily tickets on board the bus, and all of them certainly at the MTC depots and major time-keepers EVERYDAY, without time restrictions.
• MTC improve its services by augmenting the fleet in keeping with the promises made to Chennai commuters by the DMK Government repeatedly.
• At present, the augmentation of the fleet has gone down sharply.