Hubballi: Regular commuters along the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) route connecting Hubballi and Dharwad are a miffed lot these days – withdrawal of nearly 60% of the North West Karnataka Road Transport Corporation ( NWKRTC ) fleet along this route has resulted in the remaining buses being overcrowded, much to the chagrin of citizens. In order to deal with the crowd, BRTS officials have decided to induct more buses to the fleet; the additional buses will start operations from Friday. BRTS management has also decided to increase the frequency to accommodate more passengers BRTS buses can seat a mere 37 passengers, and as a result, most of the passengers must suffer their journeys standing. Worse still is the extended frequency of buses – although the authorities had promised to run buses at three to five-minute intervals, they are now operating once every 30 minutes. Passengers complained that they had to wait for nearly an hour after 7pm. NWKRTC operated 105 buses between Hubballi and Dharwad, but the eventual reduction to 45 buses followinf BRTS trial run , has compounded commuters’ woes. Manjunath Pujar, Basavaraj Hiremath and other regular passengers urged the authorities concerned to take cognisance of their problems, and to increase the strength of the fleet, besides reducing the length of the intervals between buses.Of the 45 buses operated by the Hubballi-Dharwad BRTS Company Ltd, 20 halt at limitede number of stops, while the remaining halt at all bus stops. Students and employees prefer to use BRTS buses in lieu of other NWKRTC ones. But, the reduction in the strength has landed them in hot water.The other aspect that has soured the passengers’ experience is the lack of an announcement system informing them of the upcoming stops along the route. Commuters said that the BRTS vehicles stopped for no more than a minute, and the massive crowds made both alighting, and boarding the buses an arduous task. The passengers hope that the induction of 10 more buses will provide some relief.BRTS deputy general manager (operations) Ganesh Rathod admitted that they had received reports of swelling crowds on the buses, which had in turn, inconvenienced passengers travelling between the twin cities . “To overcome this problem, we have decided to induct 10 new BRTS buses. We are closely monitoring the situation, and nearly 35,000 to 38,000 passengers are using these buses on a daily basis. Of these, we will provide only limited stops on four buses,” Rathod told TOI.Rathod said that they had temporarily suspended the announcement system, and had replaced it with a digital display board, which informed passengers of the next stops. “We will have a new announcement system in a matter of one or two weeks,” he added.

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