Tricity travel made easy, now live-track CTU buses en route

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 25

With the launch of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS), commuters will now be able to get real-time information on movement of buses and timings of their arrival and departure. The project has been implemented on 358 Chandigarh Transport Undertaking (CTU) buses running on 59 routes in the tricity. The trial run of the project on 100 buses was started in the city a year ago.

UT Administrator VP Singh Badnore today launched the state-of-the-art command control centre to monitor the city bus operations in real time and a smart card under the ITS, in the presence of UT Adviser Dharam Pal and Transport Secretary Mandip Singh Brar. Satish Kumar Jain, Director, Transport, Amit Gupta, General Manager, CTU, Yashjeet Gupta, General Manager, CCBSS, and other UT officials were also present on the occasion.

The control centre has been constructed at ISBT-43. Smart cards will be used by commuters for e-ticketing as well as concessional travel. Commuter can recharge/top up their smart cards from customer service points at the ISBT-17 and the ISBT-43, e-Sampark centres, ‘trycityBus’ (a mobile application) and web portal ‘https://ctuportal.amnex.com’.

Initially 10,000 smart cards will be issued free of cost and only printing charges will be collected from applicants. Thereafter, Rs100 will be levied for buying a smart card. The minimum recharge will be of Rs100 and the maximum of Rs4,900 with a cap at Rs5,000.

Commuters will now be able to live-track buses en route. The expected time of arrival/departure will be displayed at terminals, bus queue shelters and at commuter locations through mobile app/web.

Commuters will be able to use a journey planner through the mobile app, which will also display bus route and schedule.

A grievance redressal management system (GRMS) is inbuilt in the app. Live feed of the in-bus CCTV cameras for improving the security of commuters is also part of the ITS system.

Some security features have also been introduced in buses. There will be four cameras inside each bus to monitor the behaviour of the crew and passengers. For security of the passengers, particularly women commuters, a panic button will be there for emergency.

As a part of efficient and sustainable city bus service project of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, partially funded by World Bank, the work of supply, installation, testing and commissioning of the ITS for the city bus service was awarded to System Integrator in November 2019.

Passenger information display screens have been installed at both the ISBTs, the railway station and 37 bus queue shelters.

Features

• Automatic vehicle location and passenger information system
• Automatic fare collection
• Depot management system
• Command control centre

Commuters’ benefit

• Live tracking of buses en route
• Expected time of arrival/departure at terminals, bus queue shelters and at commuter locations
• Journey planner
• Bus route and schedule
• Grievance redressal management system
• In-bus CCTV cameras

CTU management’s advantage

• Can track number of buses scheduled out of total in depot
• Number of buses en route/idle
• Number of routes/trips in operation
• Bus and crew allocation
• Schedule adherence
• Timely bus maintenance monitoring – depot management system
• Real-time cash collection
• Reduction of cash handling, revenue leakage