Smooth ride on the new electric bus
NEW DELHI: My first year in Delhi has taught me three things — opportunities are endless, monuments are beautiful and travelling is a gruelling task.
The Delhi Metro, with its web continuously expanding, emerged as the primary means to commute for me, with the autorickshaw taking the second place. A personal car is quite a distance awaygiven the massive traffic on the roads and the guilt of polluting the air furtherwhich comes with being behind the four wheels. The last resort, however, was the bus, after having taken one around a few months ago when a friend insisted that we must take one for the fun of it.
I am so dependent on the metro that any place in Delhi is immediately reduced to the metro station closest to it. Sample this: “Achcha, Indian Habitat Centre? Cool, I will see you there. By the way, which would be the nearest metro station?”
Being one of the most populous cities in the world, all modes of public transport in Delhi should be expected to be jam-packed. To put it off further, so are the roads: traffic galore.
The Delhi government recently introduced electric buses on a trial basis, promising that the rides would be smoother and less noisy. But where does a resident board one? In a city where thousands of buses run throughout the day, figuring out where these three electric buses operated from was like finding a hay stack. But much to my relief, I found the contact details of Mr Nakul Tyagi, a conductor of one of the buses. After enquiring about the schedule and the route, I asked him how I could identify the bus at Mehrauli Terminal. He happily declared, “Aapko hamari bus alag hi dikhegi. (Our bus is so unique that you’ll spot it)” making me wonder how “different” could this bus look.
I reached the Mehrauli Terminal around 4.10pm — which also happened to be the first time I visited it. And yes, the bu swas hard to miss— a dark-blue coloured bus with “100% ELECTRIC” written on it. But I was a tad bit late, and the bus had already started moving and was speeding up. Fearing that all my effort in reaching here would be reduced to ashes, I ran towards the bus and tapped on its door. Stopping smoothly, the bus doors opened and conductor Tyagi hauled me in.
Turns out a trip to Nehru Place would on this bus, cost only ₹10. Had I taken the Metro, it would have cost me ₹30 and two interchange stations
The first thing that caught my eye were the dark-blue seats occupied by only a few passengers. A green carpet ran through the middle of the floor. I took the first seat on the right side of the bus. The unusually huge windows on either side of the bus were sufficient to quell my curiosity for all the places that the bus was going through. Leaves adorned both side of the bus walls. Even the handles for the standing passengers had ‘Go green’, ‘Live green’, ‘Save green’, etc. written all on them.
Conductor Tyagi introduced me to the 23-year-old driver Anuj Dangi –who hails from Uttar Pradesh and has been driving buses in Delhi for the last three years. He seemed quite happy with his new ride. He has been driving the bus since December 21, 2018, the day it was launched.
His day starts at 6.30am when he reaches the Seemapuri Depot and drives the bus till Anand Vihar ISBT . The bus then moves to Mehrauli at 7.30 am, which takes him one and a half hours. He then make s the return journey to Anand Vihar, following the 534 route. Over four round trips, the bus covers 261 km a day. At Seemapuri Depot, the battery of the bus is charged for three hours at night.
Dangi told me the bus has automatic gears with a power steering that are “more badiya” than the CNG buses. He found the pick-up to be “behetareen” and the accelerator and brake so “mulayam (smooth)” that speeding and slowing were effortless.
“With just three hours of charging, we still manage to retain 35%-40% battery at the end of the day,” he said, adding, “During summers, when the airconditioners will be in use, it would consume just 4% extra.”
As we moved forward and stood behind a DTC CNG bus, Dangi said, “Vaise gaadi woh bhi automatic hai par un mein thodi thakaawat hoti hai. Is mein comfortable hota hai, chaahe wo 16 ghantey hi kyun na kar lo, par thakaan nahi hoti. (Those buses are also automatic, but it is tiring to drive them. This bus is comfortable. Even if one drives for 16 hours, it isn’t tiring.)”
The electric bus also has improved safety features. For example, the vehicle won’t move if the doors are open. This got me thinking about the other buses in Delhi that continue moving even if the doors remain open, putting the lives of passengers at risk.
Echoing his colleague, Tyagi said their bus is more comfortable than the cluster and CNG buses. “Bas public ki demand aur hai — ki aur buses aayein (The public’s demand is more such buses should be brought in),” he said.
Mohammed Shafi Alam, 30, who was sitting next to me in the bus, was also travelling on the electric bus for the first time. He however, wasn’t there to test it. He was heading to Sarai Kale Khan ISBT, and hopped on reading a sign on the e-bus that fares were the same as the ones charged by the other buses.nonchalantly, he told me he liked the bus and would choose it over other buses if it is not crowded.
We reached Nehru Place around 4.48pm, more or less what it would have taken me in the Metro, I think.
There was no traffic on the route, so the bus did not experience any delay in its schedule. In my half-hour transit, I enjoyed chatting with people and knowing that I was travelling in a bus that wouldn’t contribute to the worsening air quality. The journey was smooth, although with fewer passengers, a far cry from the CNG bus.
The only thing that marred the journey was dirt that had already begun accumulating on the floor. Probably the management should realise new things shine when they are new, but their sheen is likely to perish if not looked after properly.