UT Admn finalises design of bus queue shelters

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 22

The UT Administration has finalised the design of bus queue shelters, which will have several new features to meet the demands of the smart city.

Sources said the design had been approved in the meeting of senior officers of the Transport and Engineering departments. Terms and conditions for the tender of the project have also been finalised in the meeting.

An officer of the Engineering Department said the bus queue shelters would be built on a build-operate-transfer (BoT) basis.

The company will not only construct the shelters, but will also operate and maintain them in future. The company earns the revenue through advertisements displayed at bus queue shelters.

The meeting was held after The Tribune highlighted the plight of commuters due to delay in the project on September 18. Sources said a new design had been prepared to match the intelligent traffic system to be adopted by the CTU. A provision for the passenger information system will be made at the shelters so that commuters can have the real-time information regarding the arrival of buses.

New bus queue shelters will also be made cycle-friendly having the provisions for parking of cycles under the cycle-sharing scheme. The shelters will also have a provision for solar system, which can be used for charging electrical buses.

The administration is planning to make bus queue shelters with the combined use of concrete with some steel. It will not only last long but will also be in consonance with the architecture design of the city which is close to the nature. It has been over one year since the existing bus queue shelters were removed from sectors leaving the commuters in the lurch. Commuters waiting for buses have been made to stand on roads without any protection.