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The Kochi Smart Bus Consortium has commenced its first natural gas-powered bus in Kerala as a positive step towards curbing air pollution.
The maiden service of the bus has been flagged off from Vyttila Mobility Hub on Friday by Jaffar Malik, CEO of the newly established Kerala Metropolitan Transport Authority. The bus will ply in the circular route.
Kochi Smart Bus consortium is a group of stage carriage bus operating companies who have signed agreement with Kochi Metro Rail Ltd in partnership with Axis Bank and Technovia Info Solutions in implementing smart facilities (Intelligent Transport Systems) in their fleets for the safety and convenience of passengers.
Passenger centric facilities
The buses undergoing CNG retro fitment will offer passenger centric facilities such as Kochi1 Card based ticketing ecosystem, on board passenger information system, AIS 140 Vehicle location tracking with emergency buttons, surveillance cameras and live streaming, women ticket checking inspectors, OneDi online ticketing app etc.
Kochi Smart Bus is always forefront in bringing changes in the public transport industry for which the company had received the Best City Bus award from the Ministry of Housing & Urban affairs in the 12th UMI conference held at Lucknow last year. “We are the first to introduce open loop card payments in buses, implementing smart buses and so is the case in switching to greener fuels”, said the company officials.
Apart from the go green initiative, the skyrocketing price of diesel and increasing maintenance cost have catalysed to probe the feasibility of retrofitting natural gas kits in buses, to rein in operational cost. Compared to diesel, CNG will reduce expenditure on fuel as well as environmental pollution, the officials added.
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