To make travel a more pleasant experience, the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation has installed Global Positioning System/Passenger Information System-enabled giant LCD monitors in its Volvo buses. To begin with, 10 of the buses will sport the new feature.

Akin to a television, these LCD monitors display visual advertisements and public service messages, show travel time from point to point and, what’s more, even flash breaking news.

Upendra Tripathy, BMTC Managing Director, said the new ‘fitting’ would not only offer the passenger an added novelty, apart from the FM Radio and A/C on these hi-tech buses, but also help the corporation rake in additional profits to make up for the loss incurred following the recent reduction of Volvo bus fares.

“The task of operating the GPS/PIS monitors have been outsourced to Chemm-LVSE. They will pay us Rs 600 a day for each bus. We’ve begun this on an experimental basis. This is yet another way of luring car users to take our Volvos. The extra revenue we make would be used to purchase more Volvos,” said Mr Tripathy.

 M Siddalingesh, Assistant Mechanical Engineer (GPS) of the corporation, said the on-board CPU collects data from the GPS and transmits it to the LCD.

 “For example, when a commuter boards the Volvo from Kempegowda Bus Station to ITPL at 4 pm, the monitor immediately relays information on the exact time the bus would reach Whitefield based on the speed of the bus”, he said.