B Anbuselvan By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Travel time of commuters travelling to Vellore, Tiruvannamalai, Villupuram and Puducherry will come down by 30 minutes as Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporations (TNSTC) has introduced 54 services of conductorless buses from Chennai on Thursday. As many as 231 buses operated by six transport corporations have begun to run without conductors across the State. While eliminating stoppages at motels, the transport department has also banned drivers from taking additional passengers en route. This means that passengers can board conductorless buses only at the originating points.

“Once buses commence journey from the starting point, the doors will be closed. It will stop only at the destination and at stoppages before the last station,” said an official of the Transport department. The official added that since drivers are not authorised to issue tickets, the conductorless buses cannot be stopped anywhere and thereby travel time will come down by 20 to 30 minutes for all buses.

The TNSTC (Villupuram) has converted 17 out of 115 services operated between Chennai and Vellore into conductorless point-to-point buses. For these buses, the conductor deployed at bus stand issues tickets to passengers. Drivers are given a copy of invoice with details of on-board passengers and asked to hand it over to the time office personnel in Vellore.

“Between 5 am and 3.30 pm, for every 30 minutes, a non-stop bus will leave for Vellore. The other regular services will continue to run with conductors,” said official sources. Similarly, buses have been introduced in Chennai-Puducherry (eight services), Chennai-Tiruvannamalai (13 services) and Chennai-Villupuram (18 services) routes from the CMBT. The other TNSTC divisions — Salem, Coimbatore, Madurai, Kumbakonam and Tirunelveli - have also converted many regular bus services into conductorless buses in Salem-Hosur, Salem-Coimbatore, Madurai-Tirunelveli, Tenkasi-Tirunelveli, Madurai-Tiruchy, Tiruchy-Karaikudi and Nagercoil-Tiruneveli routes.

The move was taken as part of measures to reduce manpower demand, so as to improve the financial condition of the transport department. According to an official policy note 2018-19, fleet strength of eight transport corporations is 19,490 (excluding spare buses). Official sources said the transport corporations face shortage of 8,000 drivers and conductors across the state. Owing to this, operation of 2,500 buses has reportedly been cancelled across the state in the last 12 months.

The Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation CITU state president A Soundararajan said the transport workers would protest against this move at depots across state on Friday. “The role of conductors cannot be reduced to the level of issuing tickets. It’s a subordinate post for driver. During emergencies or accidents, the driver requires support of conductor to handle crisis. And also, it is unsafe to operate a bus without conductor,” he said.