Chennai to get disabled-friendly low-floor buses from July

CHENNAI: In a relief to passengers with disabilities, MTC has received two new low-floor buses at its Chromepet depot on Saturday. These buses would be put to use in the coming weeks.

Two new buses were part of the 552 low-floor buses procured under the German funding agency KfW for operation in Chennai, Madurai and Coimbatore. Of the 552 low-floor buses to be procured, 352 would be allotted to the MTC, 100 each would go to TN State Transport Corporation in Coimbatore and Madurai.

The arrival of the new low-floor buses has come days after Transport Minister SS Sivasankar announced in the Assembly that body-building of the 552 buses was taking place at Alwar in Rajasthan and that buses will commence operation in Chennai from July.

After the condemnation of the last batch of low-floor Volvo buses in November 2018, the MTC has no low-floor buses in its fleet. The number of low-floor buses procurement under the KfW funding was increased from 442 to 552 after the Madras HC directed the government to reduce the number of high-floor buses to 950 from 1,107 buses and procure 157 low-floor buses.

In a writ petition filed by activist Vaishnavi Jayakumar f the Disability Rights Alliance (DRA) challenging the procurement of 1,107 high-floor buses, the first division bench of the High Court in May 2023 directed to the government to aim at operating 100% low-floor buses in the State in the future, making bus stops disabled-friendly, enable apps for commuters to check bus schedules and also improve road quality to ensure more low-floor buses can ply.

As of May 31, 2024, around 49.60% of the State Transport Undertaking’s bus fleet of 20,260 are over-aged. The transport corporations have initiated the process of procurement of 8,182 buses so far. As of date, 1,088 new buses were added and 929 were under body-building.