On the cards, CTU bus tracking on cellphone

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 19

Decks have been cleared for modernisation of the public transport system in the city as the Transport Department has allotted the work for the installation of intelligent transport system in the CTU buses at a cost of over Rs 35 crore.

The department has selected a Gujarat-based company after the bids to carry out the project were opened recently.

The Administration had signed an agreement with the World Bank on the implementation of the project in 2016. Under the plan, the World Bank will release funds in the next two years to modernise the CTU operations with IT-enabled services. With the implementation of the system, transportation will become safe, smart and passenger-friendly.

Uma Shankar Gupta, Director, Transport, said the company would implement the project in one year. It would install and manage the operations for five years and then hand over the system to the CTU.

Under the project, a centralised control station will be set up that would help track the buses in operation across the city through GPS units mounted on the vehicles. The system will give all information about the buses on a real-time basis and the arrival time will be displayed on a screen at bus stops. People will be able to access the information online through a mobile application.

Computerisation of bus depots will also be done under the project. The project was delayed by over two years due to various reasons.