Adding another feather to its cap, the Capital Region Urban Transport (Crut) and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Saturday commissioned 13 buses for last-mile connectivity in localities yet to get public transport.
Usually, city buses ply on the main arterial roads but the new fleet will help connect localities which have been left out as these routes are mostly in sub-arteries and bylanes.
“The 13 buses will ply between Gadakana and Dumduma, a 20-km stretch along which there are several villages. The bus will run on the new route no. 25 that was opened for last-mile connectivity and to facilitate residents living in remote corners to get access to public transport,” said BMC commissioner Vijay Kulange.
The buses will start from Gadakana and will touch Mancheswar, VSS Nagar, Master Canteen, Pokhariput and Dumduma, en route to Baramunda and Khandagiri. “Every 15 minutes, there will be a bus on the new route. The service was started after a survey. The 13 buses, include five electric vehicles with 30 seats and eight mid-size non-AC ones with 29 seats,” said Crut manager Abhijit Swain.
Officials said the Gadamaka-Dumduma route is an important one as it will also help ease traffic on the Jaydev Vihar-Patia stretch, which witnesses peak traffic from 5 pm to 9 pm because the road leads to Cuttack. Apart from intra-city Crut buses, there are buses that go to Cuttack every 15 minutes. As the Jaydev Vihar-Patia route leads to KIIT University, Infocity and Nandankanan, the opening of route no. 25 will boost public transport, officials said.
BMC officials said the running of 13 buses will help students and elderly people get public transport as the vehicles will pass through small lanes along the residential areas. While from Gadakana, buses will start at 7 am and run till 9.10 pm, the service will start at 5.35 am from Dumduma. The last bus from Dumduma will be available at 7.35 pm.
In June last year, the daily ridership in a city bus in Bhubaneswar was nearly 2 lakh. In a little over a year, the daily ridership has risen to around 3 lakh. People shuttling between Bhubaneswar and neighbouring Cuttack in long-distance express buses, are now switching to city buses because of on-time and comfortable ride.
