The secretary claimed that traffic and transportation problems would be mitigated with the completion of the Golden Quadrangle project.

He expressed concern over the high cash loss by STUs which was Rs 500 crore during 1997-98. He pointed out that nearly 50 per cent of the total earnings are spent on labour cost and in the urban areas it is much more. Hesuggested that while inadequate fare could be one of the basic reasons for losses, containing labour costs should be taken up seriously.

On vehicular pollution, Vasudevan observed that the government has already notified implementation of Euro 1 norms for emission from April 1, 2001.The secretary hoped that transport undertakings are working on different technology and alternate fuels to remedy the situation.

Vasudevan called upon the chief executives of the transport undertakings attending the conference to make the public transport system attractive to wean away people from using personalised transport in order to combat congestion.

In this context, he lauded the role of Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation for its efforts in developing an integrated public transport system involving exclusive bus lane, elevated bus lane, bus priority lane, high capacity buses with one or two vestibules, automatic fare collection system, geographic information system, geographic positioning system and accesscontrol system.

The secretary called upon transport undertakings to issue citizens charter to ensure transparency and accountability. He suggested that effective measures should be put into practice to prevent accidents. For this, technological upgradation and reenigneering of buses require priority in vehicle design and building. These buses should be driver, maintenance, environment and consumer friendly.

The secretary gave away awards to various state transport undertakings for excellent performance in different categories. The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) was given the best improvement vehicle productivity award followed by the State Express Transport Corporation (Tamil Nadu, Division-I) Ltd for highest performance in vehicle productivity.

The two-day conference is being attended by chief executives from 71 public sector passenger transport undertakings. The officials will discuss issues relating to performance and ways and means to combat pollution, congestion and accidents. The conference isalso expected to deliberate on public-private partnership in road transport, intelligent transport system applications to cut costs and improve performance and public service apart from technology uprgadation and alternative fuels.