Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena on Tuesday gave his go-ahead to the introduction of a premium app-based bus service in the national capital. A notification to this effect was issued following the L-G’s assent.
The concept of this new service was first introduced by the Arvind Kejriwal government in May this year. The Delhi Chief Minister said that the rollout of the new service could potentially change the public transport service in the capital and encourage people to take buses and leave behind their private vehicles.
The Delhi Motor Vehicles Licensing of Aggregator (Premium Buses) Scheme, 2023 envisions a premium intra-city bus service that will allow app-based bookings, have no standing passengers, and with fares higher than other buses, including those owned or operated by the state government’s Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC).
Besides key safety features like CCTV, GPS and panic buttons, the premium AC buses will also be Wi-Fi enabled. Payments and bookings will only be allowed through the online medium. There will be no physical tickets that will be handed and only passengers with prior online bookings will be allowed to travel on these buses.
Reports suggest that under the new scheme, the license holders will also have the flexibility to decide the route and fare as per their choice. The fare though will have to be mandatorily displayed on the app.
The scheme also provides for dynamic pricing which will allow the license holder to increase or decrease the fare as long as it does not fall below the maximum fare of the Delhi Trasport Corporation (DTC).
Bookings once made online will not be allowed to be cancelled unless in case of extraordinary circumstances. Notably, these buses will not offer free rides to women.
“I hope this service will bring a big change in the public transport system of Delhi. People will leave their cars and scooters and start traveling in buses. We worked hard in the last four years to make it meaningful,” Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said.
The government claims that despite the introduction and expansion of the Delhi Metro, buses continue to be a popular choice of transport for people in the capital. Delhi currently has around 7,200 buses under DTC and the cluster scheme. The state government aims to increase the strength of the fleet to 11,000 and to ensure that 80% of all public buses in Delhi are electric by 2025.
The scheme was first mooted by the Kejriwal government in 2016 but was turned down by then Governor Najeeb Jung. The government now hopes that premium buses running on routes with peak traffic would decongest Delhi roads as more people would prefer buses over their privately-owned cars.