JOIN USIf you are a stranger to Bangalore city and waiting for a bus at M G Road to go to Jayanagar 1st Block, you need not worry. Just dial 155220 and get the details of the bus.
In a bid to make urban transport facility commuter-friendly, the Union urban development ministry has announced the setting up of a pan-India common helpline number to provide information exclusively about city buses.
This helpline number will work on the lines of the railway helpline which provides train movement details, Union Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy said here at press conference on Monday.
Road map
“The ministry is preparing a road map on how this helpline should work and send the details to all states to enable them to implement it in another three months,” he said. This will be implemented in association with state governments.
The helpline number will be common throughout the country and information will be given in English, Hindi and local languages.
The system will work in such a way that all buses in a city will be connected to global positioning system (GPS) which will in turn be connected to a control room set up in that city.
The control room will disseminate information about the location of the bus to the caller by tracking its movement on computer, M Ramachandran, Secretary Urban Development, told Deccan Herald.
To improve the urban transport system and encourage people to use public transport facility by shunning private transport like car or bike to decongest the city roads, about 15,220 modern buses for city transport for 61 cities are being procured by the ministry.
Bangalore and Mysore will receive 1,000 and 150 buses, respectively. All these buses will be equipped with the GPS-based bus tracking system.
As the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation is already using GPS to track buses, the helpline will be a boon to the city passengers as the transport organisation need not worry about setting up the additional infrastructure for the new facility, Ramachandran said.