Twin treats for bus commuters

KOLKATA: Gone are those days when you wasted precious minutes waiting for the bus to your workplace. Thanks to ‘Pathadisha’ — an app transport minister will launch on Wednesday — you will get to track your bus from your home and plan your journey accordingly.
Besides, the transport department is introducing a smart card for commuters — quite similar to the Metro card — that would help a commuter to get rid of perpetual problem of change.Against each recharge, there will be quite a few free rides as promotional offer.
“To begin with, commuters will get to track and use smart cards on 700 government buses but gradually, all private buses, trams and vessels will be covered by the Vehicle Tracking System (VTS),” said Adhikari. VTS is a coordination between global positioning system in a bus and the server, which will facilitate smooth journey and ensure better fleet management, added principal secretary (transport) Alapan Bandyopadhyay. The live tracking has been quite effective at the WBTC (the unified platform of CSTC, CTC and WBSTC) central control room at Ganesh Chandra Avenue for the last few months.
“The best part of this app is the security feature. Women will feel safe in our buses. The alert will come to our control centre with the exact location and will automatically go to the local police station and police control room,” said a WBTC officer. The World Bank and the Korean government have supported both the projects with grants.
Once the smart card is introduced, commuters will be able to swipe the card with a machine available with the bus conductor. “It will help us in curbing revenue pilferage,” Adhikari said.
“Through VTS, we will also have a real-time assessment of routes, the demand-supply gap and passenger rush on a particular route. This will help us reinforce our services on particular routes. The VTS will also help us check truncation of service, if any. Any aberration will be recorded and we will investigate it,“ said an officer.