The Delhi government on Tuesday has won the “Best PPP Initiative in Urban Transport” award for introducing cluster buses in the city at the Urban Mobility Conference 2011 organised by the Institute of Urban Transport (India).
The awards were given away by Union Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath and was received by Delhi transport minister Arvinder Singh Lovely.
Mr Lovely said the cluster scheme, conceptualised and drafted by Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System in 2007, has achieved high operating standards with 100 per cent fleet utilisation and 99.68 per cent km efficiency, which was the highest in the country. Currently, 150 cluster buses are operating on Delhi roads, he said, adding that the optimum load factor was over 1,000 passengers a day per bus.
The scheme, which is part of the project “Corporatisation of Private Stage Carriage Buses in Delhi”, was aimed at the city government’s objective to provide safe and comfortable public transport to the citizens, Mr Lovely said. “The main objective of the cluster scheme is to have a safe, high-quality bus network which is passenger-guided and responsive to changes in demand due to economic growth and demographic shifts. It is on the lines of a universal bus network providing service availability on all scheduled routes to people from all sections of the community and a cost-effective network that minimises user tariffs and recourses to public subsidy,” he said, adding that the process involved dividing 657 routes of the city into 17 clusters.
“Each cluster is to be serviced by a single operator. The routes will also be serviced by DTC and both are assigned a unified time table. While evolving the cluster system, DIMTS took into account the feedback of the most important stakeholders — the public — by inviting response through a public notification,” he said.