TSRTC’s electric AC buses to hit the roads today

Hyderabad: With an aim to provide better and comfortable travel experience to the people along with environmental benefits and pollution prevention, the TSRTC has decided to operate 50 electric AC buses on the Hyderabad-Vijayawada route and launch 10 EV buses on this route from Tuesday.

TSRTC named these buses as ‘E-Garuda’ which will be inaugurated at Miyapur crossroads on Tuesday in the presence of Transport Minister Puvvada Ajay Kumar, TSRTC Chairman and MLA Bajireddy Govardhan, and MD VC Sajjanar.

According to TSRTC, the rest of the 40 EV buses will be available in phases by the end of this year. The corporation planned to run an electric AC bus every 20 minutes on the Hyderabad-Vijayawada route. It said that 1,860 new electric buses will be made available in the next two years, among which 1300 buses will run in Hyderabad city and 550 buses to distant areas and 10 double-decker buses will provide service in Greater Hyderabad soon.

These 12-meter long electric AC buses will be available with high-tech features like capacity of 41 seats, mobile charging facilities and reading lamps, panic button have been installed at each seat. A vehicle tracking systemhas also been installed which will be connected to the TSRTC control room. Three CCTV cameras have been installed in each bus with a recording backup of one month and an Automatic Passenger Counter (APC) camera has also been installed to count the passengers in the bus.

For the convenience of passengers, the buses will also contain details of destinations. Fire Detection Suppression System (FDSS) has been installed in buses to detect and prevent fire accidents early. Buses have a public address system to convey information to the passengers and can travel a distance of 325 km on single charge.