Tata Motors has bagged an order of a total of 2,700 buses under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission-II (JNNURM) scheme. The order includes 780 Tata Marcopolo built buses by Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) and 487 ‘urban’ buses by Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC).
These buses are fitted with CCTV cameras thus helping in monitoring every movement in the bus. Further, Tata teslls us that the wider and lower entry/exit doors, bucket type seats, softer suspension and lower Noise, Vibration and harshness make these buses safe and convenient for being used as an everyday commuter inside a city.
The advanced Intelligent Transport System (ITS) helps in giving out information in a clear and understandable manner, thanks to the GPS based electronic destination display boards, which can show the expected time of arrival at the next bus stop and route details.
This system also helps in increasing the efficiency of State Transport Units as they can be hooked-up to a central control room server. Based on these inputs, one can monitor the performance of each bus on the basis of the number of trips, off-road position and compliance to pre-scheduled maintenance by monitoring real-time health of the bus, through OBD (on-board diagnostics). One can even control the frequency of a bus in a particular route to ease the crowd.
All these buses are fitted with an ISBe Cummins fuel efficient engine with a 6 speed overdrive gearbox and cable shift mechanism for easy shifts. Many of these buses will also be fitted with an automatic transmission.
Tata Motors will also train drivers of the respective State Transport Units so that they can comfortably learn about functionality of the new buses. They will also be supporting the servicing and maintenance of these buses with its large network of 1,800 authorized service centres.
Tata has over 60,000 Marcopolo buses plying in the country and are investing more time and energy in developing new products. They have also developed Electric Hybrid Buses which were tested for the first time during the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
