It has been almost two months since the public transport has been active in Bengaluru. On March 20th, the first lockdown was announced in the city, and since then, both BMTC and BMRCL have not been functioning. However, with services slowly resuming, Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) are being laid out by the concerned authorities for the resumption of both these facilities. In this article, we look at the preliminary procedures that are being developed for both BMTC and Metro.
BMTC will not be the same!
To begin with, according to the Managing Director of BMTC, C Shikha, there will be major changes in the functioning of BMTC henceforth. She said: “First, is sanitising the buses ,they will be washed and disinfected on a daily basis and we have made necessary arrangements for that. Secondly, BMTC staff will mandatorily wear masks and gloves. We provided two sets of these to everyone in March. The third aspect is that all staff will be checked daily by medical staff at the depot when they first report to the depot.”
While commuters will also have to compulsorily don masks, regarding the issue of cash collection, she said: “We will advocate monthly passes for regular users, so this will reduce contact. We will try to minimise cash collection to the extent it is possible. For casual users, we will go for QR code based online payment, which can be done through phones.”
Namma Metro is going to be less crowded
However, BMRCL authorities are waiting for the SOP to be laid out by the Union Ministry, before going forward. Nonetheless, there will be major changes in the way Metro is going to operate in the near future.
As per a mobility expert, metro could have seating in alternative seats and circles/ triangles will have to be drawn for people to stand. He added that 100-115 passengers per coach may be a good number to maintain.
Meanwhile, BMRCL has also floated a tender for open loop mobility cards which can be used for contact-less payment. It so far only has closed loop mobility cards.
Source: The News Minute
