Rationalisation of Bus Services in Delhi

Efficient transport services are critical to the functioning of any metropolitan city like Delhi. While the expansion of metro rail provides mass rapid transport services across the city, the bus services in Delhi have lagged significantly. Although there is a broad agreement over the past several years that Delhi required more buses on road, a wide deficit led to an increasing reliance on cars, three-wheelers and two-wheelers of the residents of the National Capital Territory. As such, this reliance on individual modes of transport contributed significantly to traffic congestion and environmental pollution. Unless there is a quantum improvement in public transport, especially bus services, the quality of life in Delhi would continue to deteriorate.

In 2017, a Committee was formed by the Transport Department under the chairmanship of Shri Gajendra Haldea, former Member Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi (DDC) to help rationalise bus services in Delhi. The Committee noted that as on March 31, 2017, the total number of buses that operated in the city by DTC and DIMTS was 5,671. Of these, 4,893 buses on average were on the road as against an acknowledged requirement of about 11,000 buses. This acute shortage of buses caused excessive overloading during peak hours, besides a lack of reliability of the bus services as a whole, which in turn led to a steady shift to cars, three-wheelers and two-wheelers, thereby adding rapidly to traffic congestion and environmental pollution.

Therefore, it became necessary to take immediate measures not only to rationalise the routes but also to add new buses urgently with a view to improving the efficiency and reliability of bus services in Delhi.

Key Learnings

The Committee undertook extensive consultations with experts and stakeholders in order to evolve an action plan that can be implemented over a year to provide much-needed relief to the residents of Delhi. A detailed report was submitted to the Transport Department by the committee for review and implementation. The following were the key learnings of the Committee:

• The Committee noted that in 2015-16, DTC operated a fleet of 4,362 buses for the city (of which 1,227 were AC buses) while DIMTS operated 1,490 Non-AC buses, making up a total of 5,852 buses, of which 4,903 (83.7%) buses on an average were on the road. As of 31.03.2017, DTC and DIMTS had a fleet of 4,020 buses and 1,651 buses respectively, i.e. a total of 5,671 buses of which about 4,893 buses (i.e. 86.28%) were on the road.
   
• The Committee noted that passes for all buses were issued by DTC alone and the same were valid on DIMTS buses. The total pass revenue collected by DTC in respect of all Non-AC buses was, therefore, computed as a proportion of the combined ticket revenue of DTC and DIMTS, and the same was allocated between DTC and DIMTS as a proportion of their respective ticket revenues.
   
• From the above analysis, the Committee noted that about 17.5% of the total traffic revenues from Non-AC buses came from passes while the corresponding figure for AC buses was 23.6%.
   
• The Committee reviewed the route-wise traffic revenues and the load factor of AC and Non-AC bus services operated on each route by DTC and DIMTS respectively for the year 2015-16. The above data indicated a wide divergence in the load factor and earnings from different routes. While the load factor on different routes ranged between 19% and 95%, the earnings per kilometre (EPK) ranged between Rs. 6.61 and Rs. 38.07. This reinforced the need for the induction of additional buses as well as for the rationalisation of routes.
   
• The Committee noted that the performance of buses operated by DIMTS was superior as compared to the buses operated by DTC. On critical parameters such as operating costs, revenue realisation, capacity utilisation, EPK and load factor, DTC lagged behind DIMTS, which implied that the Government had to bear a substantially greater burden on sustaining DTC services. In particular, the difference between operating costs and EPK of DTC and DIMTS indicated that the burden imposed on the exchequer is significantly higher in respect of the services provided by DTC.
   

Recommendations

• Urgent procurement of about 4,200 buses within a year, comprising 2,600 Non-AC standard buses, 500 AC standard buses, 100 electric buses, 665 Non-AC midi buses and 335 AC midi buses.
   
• These buses were recommended to be procured from concessionaires under the extant Cluster Scheme, with the exception of 600 buses which may be procured and operated by DTC. Further, procurements were recommended to be undertaken after a review in early 2018.
   
• Long-overdue liberalisation of bus transport may be taken up by enabling competing for private sector entities to provide App-based bus services with light-handed regulation. This was a critical reform with the potential of providing need-based services that would wean away car users and reduce traffic congestion and pollution.
   
• Two-tier Network strategy recommended comprising trunk routes and primary/secondary routes.
   
• A host of other measures were recommended and considered necessary for an efficient and economic network of bus services. These included the adoption of a normative load factor, fine-tuning of the Cluster Scheme, the introduction of midi buses on secondary/ primary routes, additional parking space and the development of bus depots through PPP.