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“The selected firm will get one year to supply all 300 buses”. Officials said the first e-bus may hit the road by April 2020. Earlier, former transport minister DC Thammanna decided to transfer BMTC Volvo buses to KSRTC to operate in nearby cities. At present, the average age of Volvo buses in BMTC is 8 years and 5.4 lakh km. On Sunday, the BMTC resumed its AC Volvo bus services on six routes, including Bengaluru airport. It also operates 120 of the 860 AC buses in its fleet. “We’re coming up with a new scrapping policy for Volvo buses,” the official added. According to the officer, the BMTC currently runs around 5,200 buses in the city every day. For Volvo buses, it is 10 years and 10 lakh km. According to BMTC, they scrap ordinary buses which are either more than 11 years or have run over 8.5 lakh km, whichever is earliest. It’s not feasible to immediately scrap Volvo buses as it’ll yield only a few lakhs of rupees in the scrap market,” the official said.
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“We’ll induct 357 new non-AC diesel buses (10m, 41-seater buses) by January 2020. BMTC has decided to scrap 1,089 non-AC buses this year. Leasing electric buses is a more feasible option,” said an official. There are technical issues and breakdowns. “The operational and maintenance cost is high for Volvo diesel buses. The operational cost of an electric A/C bus, including cost of power, conductor’s salary and GST, would be between Rs 60 and Rs 63 per km, lower than Rs 75 to Rs 80 per km for a Volvo A/C diesel bus. BMTC officials said they’ve been suffering heavy losses due to Volvo services. Fares of electric A/C buses will be the same as Volvo buses as BMTC is not in a position to reduce them. Sources say 300 A/C electric low-floor buses (12metre, 37 seater) will be deployed on routes like airport, outer ring road, Electronics City and Whitefield. The transport corporation is one of Volvo’s largest customers among SRTUs. BMTC was the first state road transport undertaking (SRTU) in the country to induct Volvo A/C buses for city services in 2006. But without a network of charging stations, is this ambitious proposal even feasible? 300 electric buses to replace Volvo fleet BMTC has 825 Volvo buses for Vajra and Vayu Vajra (airport) services. Now, BMTC, grappling with declining ridership, mounting losses and threat from mobility startups, wants to replace the Volvo fleet with electric buses. A common grumble is that getting to one of the buses is a commute in itself. Bengalureans love to travel in the Volvo, but they are put off by a policy that envisioned only select stops from where one can get on board. A popular commuting option, the AC Volvo bus, is likely to be taken off roads, a casualty of bad planning that’s left BMTC with unmanageable finances.