Now, travel an entire month on Chennai buses for Rs 2,000

CHENNAI: Transport Minister SS Sivasankar on Wednesday launched a new Rs 2,000 ‘travel as you please’ (TAYPT) bus pass to enable passengers travel in AC and electric buses operated by the Metropolitan Transport Corporation.

Using the new bus pass, the passengers can make unlimited trips on the MTC buses. Already, the MTC has Rs 1,000 TAYPT passes which could be used to travel on all buses except AC ones.

“As of now, MTC operates 50 AC buses and would be adding 625 electric buses by the year-end to its fleet,” the minister said after launching the new bus pass at Mandaveli bus depot.

To a question on hiking the TAYPT passes from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000, he said: “The MTC will continue to issue Rs 1,000 TAYPT passes. The new Rs 2,000 pass can be used to travel on AC buses.”

MTC has already awarded a tender to procure 500 electric buses, including 100 AC electric buses, through a World Bank funded project. The delivery is expected from April this year. In the second phase of the scheme, a tender has been floated for procuring 600 electric buses including 400 AC buses.

A bid has been floated by the Institute of Road Transport under the KfW-funded programme to procure 500 electric buses for Chennai, Madurai and Coimbatore, and MTC will get 320 electric AC buses. In all, MTC will get 1,420 electric buses, including 820 AC electric buses.

Also Read: MTC to introduce Rs 2000 monthly travel pass for Chennai buses