ITS-guided buses in Bengaluru soon

Now, with the coming weekend, 15 buses installed with ITS from each depot, will be rolled out. By December-end the project will be launched in a full-fledged way.

Initially, the pilot project faced innumerable problems over the Electronic Ticketing Machines (ETMs). Also, the GPS installed in all the buses did not reflect accurate data. However, all that has been rectified now and the project is almost ready to roll.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Biswajit Mishra, IT head from BMTC said, “In the last one-and-a-half months we have already installed 3,800-3,900 buses with GPS. The mapping will take another month. We are running about 100-200 buses with ETM machines from depot 2. Now we will send buses from other depots as well with ETM machines and we intend to observe their performance.”

It is not necessary only for BMTC officials to sit in the control room, anyone who has the id and password can access the data from anywhere. The data is transmitted every 10 seconds. It also sends alerts about details like over- speeding, route deviation and late departure.

ITS is one of the biggest projects initiated by the BMTC, which is being implemented at a cost of

Rs 72 crores for five years. It will, among other things, check pilferage by conductors, because sale of tickets will be through ETMs.

It is also expected to boost their revenue as well. The BMTC is expected to see about 20 per cent increase in revenue, which was Rs 1,516 crore during 2012-13.