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RTC in search of ways to weather competition
With losses rising on some of the key inter-State routes and increase in competition, the corporation is looking to maintain cordial relations with its Telangana counterpart apart from experimenting with some of the strategies used by private bus operators to increase the occupancy rate.
Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) is seriously working on challenges posed by the Telangana RTC and private bus operators, in operating inter-State services, a key source of income to the corporation.
With losses rising on some of the key inter-State routes and increase in competition, the corporation is looking to maintain cordial relations with its Telangana counterpart apart from experimenting with some of the strategies used by private bus operators to increase the occupancy rate.
According to sources, APSRTC had 190 inter-State permits and TSRTC had 99 permits to operate buses between Vijayawada and Hyderabad which lapsed some time ago. Both the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governments have to sign a new agreement on this issue.
In a recent meeting, APSRTC authorities asked for the continuation of the status quo in place at the time of bifurcation but TSRTC authorities have remained indifferent to the proposal. On the other hand, TSRTC has nearly doubled its shuttle-services between Vijayawada and Hyderabad recently which is a cause of concern to APSRTC as the route is a major income sources to it.
TSRTC is operating over 350 buses while the APSRTC operates more than 560 buses, according to a senior officer of APSRTC.
APSTRC is covering an extra distance of 1.5 lakh kilometres on the Hyderabad-Vijayawada route. APSRTC is losing Rs 15 on Telugu Velugu’ buses and Rs 12 on city ordinary buses, per kilometre and the ‘Amarvati, Garuda and Indra’ services are the only dependable sources of income.
Neither is the corporation making profits on other inter-State routes including Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Taking advantage of the situation are the private bus operators who ply over 700 buses in the route. In the recent meeting, senior officials of APSRTC tried to convince their Telangana counterparts on how competition between them would prove to be unviable to both the corporations.
At the same time, APSRTC is making efforts to adopt the methods of private operators in operating inter-State services. As part of this, RTC is contemplating running these services only on highway routes avoiding the bus stations on the Hyderabad route which would shorten each journey by about 2 hours.
RTC also decided to use mini-buses to pick up passengers from various colonies in Hyderabad and Vijayawada and drop them at the points on the highway routes where inter-State bus services begin.
APSRTC executive director (operations) Jaya Rao said that the authorities are also contemplating recruiting MBA graduates for Garuda+, Garuda and Indra services for the purpose of alerting passengers over the phone for pick-up services, similar to the method being used by private operators.
