With misleading info on buses, MTC website of little use to commuters

DECCAN CHRONICLE. | K V NAVYA

PublishedAug 21, 2017, 6:21 am IST

MTC also invested in a facility like GPS to reflect actual bus operations, but has failed to provide such real-time information for a few years now.

Actual route number 7E from Ambattur Estate to Broadway is wrongly mentioned as S07E in the website. Numerous such “S” prefixes confuse the users of MTC website.(Photo: DC)

Chennai: The website of Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) upon which hundreds of everyday commuters depend, has been receiving criticism from the passengers for displaying wrong information. Its age-old design is also not user-friendly.

MTC operates ordinary, express, deluxe, Volvo and small buses out of which small bus route numbers are prefixed with the letter ‘S’. But the database of the website is wrong as most of the regular routes are also prefixed with “S”, thereby confusing commuters.

“About 50 buses are wrongly prefixed with ‘S’. For example, the regular bus route 47A from Besant Nagar to ICF is mentioned as S47A and the regular route 7E is prefixed as S07E from Broadway to Ambattur Estate,” said Murali Krishna, a student. Also, the fares mentioned in the website according to stages are not followed in all the buses, so even this is ultimately confusing the commuters.

Another major issue is the bus timings. Karthik Kumar, a resident of T. Nagar said, “It must have been more than five years since the website has had any changes incorporated. With changed road patterns due to ongoing metro construction and increased traffic, the timings are at least 30 minutes adrift of what is mentioned on the website. My online complaint on this issue went unanswered.”

MTC also invested in a facility like GPS to reflect actual bus operations, but has failed to provide such real-time information for a few years now. Moreover, an MTC insider said there were only 3,688 buses as of May 31, 2017, but the website mentions it as 3,964. In 2016, when there were only around 3,600 buses, the website showed 4,032 buses, he alleged.

When contacted, an official of MTC said the database error would soon be corrected but he was vague on the number of buses in operation.