MSRTC to roll out AC sleeper buses on long-distance routes

Mumbai: The Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC)—whose fleet has evolved from the red-and-yellow ordinary ST buses to hi-tech ones including 88 AC Volvo services—now plans to introduce sleeper air-conditioned (AC) coaches for long-distance routes.
Sources in the state transport body said that plans were afoot to introduce the AC sleeper Volvos for Goa—a destination for which the MSRTC had received tremendous response recently.
“Last month, we launched the Volvo service with a seating capacity of 45 for the Mumbai-Panjim route. Our buses are nearly packed for all of May and only a handful of seats are available for the summer season,’’ said a senior MSRTC official, adding that there was a demand to introduce sleeper coaches on long-distance routes. “We would soon be including such buses in our fleet,’’ he said, while refusing to elaborate further.
Of the 88 services across the state, more than 50% of these hi-tech Volvo buses ply the Mumbai-Pune route. The MSRTC had recently launched new Volvo services on other routes such as Pune-Nanded, Pune-Jalgaon, Pune-Sangli and Pune-Kolhapur.
“We provide newspapers and drinking water in our Volvo buses. To ensure the safety of our passengers, we have been creating awareness about the dangers of accepting food or drinks from strangers during the journey or at scheduled halts,’’ the official said. “Our campaign has been successful. Of late, we haven’t come across cases of passengers being administered stupefying drugs and robbed while travelling in our Volvos,” the official added.
Besides the Volvos, the corporation also wants to upgrade its “Parivartan” ordinary buses by providing more comfortable seats to passengers. At least five Parivartan buses are replacing the old ST buses daily. The new buses have single windshield, polyurethane seats with seating arrangement of 2X2 instead of the conventional 2X3, good leg space and polymer paint.
Published in Times of India