With Covid curbs gone, passengers return to Volvo buses

Nischith N | NT

The Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation has said that with the lifting of Covid restrictions, the occupancy and revenue from Volvo bus services have improved significantly. BMTC officials claim that the average daily revenue of Volvo buses for February 2022 was Rs 2.6 crore, compared with Rs 1.8 crore in January.

According to a BMTC official, “Due to the recent pandemic, the roads were almost empty for most part of the day. Even after the lockdown was lifted, not many people were taking buses. But now things are falling in place as many companies are getting their employees back to office. The Volvo bus services on some routes are packed.”

When many companies started remote work in a big way during the pandemic, BMTC had to curtail its Volvo services due to low patronage. It was forced to operate only 220 Vajra services and 76 Vayu Vajra services across Bengaluru, covering 500 plus trips on a daily basis.

In the pre-pandemic times, it used to operate 860 AC buses across the city, and 300 catered primarily to the various IT corridors in the city.

The transport operator had on December 17 last year slashed Volvo (Vajra service) fares for medium and long-distance by 35 per cent in the city. However, in January patronage continued to remain low. “The estimated revenue after discount in fares of Volvo buses was Rs 10 lakh per day, but the corporation managed to reach only Rs 6.5 lakh per day in January. The maintenance cost is an extra burden. An AC Volvo bus will provide only 2 km mileage per litre,” the official said.