The huge buses of IT companies that choke Chennai traffic at peak hours might become redundant soon.
If the proposal of Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) and IT industry body Nasscom is anything to go by, software employees working in the IT corridor might actually take MTC buses to reach their offices.
MTC has proposed dedicated bus services to companies located in the IT corridor that stretches from Madhya Kailash junction to Siruseri to cut down the number of private buses. The corporation has offered to ferry IT employees via special buses with GPRS systems to decongest the roads.
“The larger plan is to connect these systems to office PCs and personal mobiles of employees to track their location,” said B. Parayath, co-ordinator of Chennai CitiConnect, an NGO assigned to collect initial data.
The NGO had been asked to collect “to and from” passenger data and hubs in start and end points for feeder services, based on which a call on both the routes and number of buses will be taken.
Initial data has zeroed in on Velachery, Adyar, Thiruvanmayur and Saidapet as key transit hubs for traffic along the corridor. “About 37 per cent of traffic towards the IT corridor originate from Velachery, Adyar and Thiruvanmayur alone,” said Mr Parayath.
Though over 240 companies are located along the corridor, only 8-9 big companies like Cognizant, TCS, HCL, Accenture, Wipro etc. contribute to most of the traffic.
“On an average, about 23,000 employees travel along the stretch daily while the current MTC facility has a peak output capacity to carry only 12,500 passengers,” he pointed out.
The idea has found favour with most ITfirms. “With an ever-increasing workforce, IT companies find it increasingly difficult to co-ordinate on logistics and also to find parking space for buses within their campuses,” said a Nasscom source.