City buses in Madurai were a changed lot now. Even 3 months back, we can spot only a few ‘Low Floor, Deluxe’ buses on city roads. Now it easily outnumbers the ordinary ones. Most buses plying within city were these low-floor types now.
These private-built buses look sturdier than regular ones. Automatic doors, air suspension were welcome addition. But it has started showing signs of wear & neglect due to characteristic poor maintenance.
State transport corporations quickly adopted Lalu’s technique of charging more without raising basic ticket prices. Bus fare on low floor buses were 200% to 250% higher than basic fare.
The following were the ticket fares between Periyar Bus Stand & TIrumangalam (approx: 20kms):
- Basic fare: Rs . 5.50 [red bus with big yellow band in middle]
- LSS fare: Rs. 6.50 [blue & yellow chequered ]
- City Exp: Rs.10.00 [green & yellow]
- Low Floor: Rs.11.00 [saffron & yellow - visually distinct]
It seems more than 90% of buses in this route were low floor – as it serves high commuter traffic of south-bound mofusil travellers, who find it easier/time saving to visit Tirumangalam than to visit Mattu Thavani Integrated Bus Stand (MIBS).
How does it perform in cost-conscious Madurai?
Daily wage earners depend mostly on city buses. You should see the expressions in their face, when three consecutive buses to their destination were all ‘low-floors’. They even have a nickname for it – ‘kollakara bussu’ (pirate bus) !!
It eases the life on GST road from Palanganatham through Tiruparankundram, Tirunagar. All the intimidating roars & horns of private buses, that menacingly edge out 2-wheelers & flummox tiny 4 wheelers were missing.
Thankfully, the high-court case comes to an end. All the mofussil buses from south now takes a detour via ring road and reaches Maatu Thavani Bus Stand (MTBS).
Interestingly, some private short distance carriers terminate at Tirumangalam (20kms from Madurai) instead of going to MTBS.
When the bridge next to Periyar (central) bus stand was closed for rebuilding, the vital link to Arasaradi & beyond were cut-off.
As a result, the detour from periyar bus stand to aarapalayam bus stand is a little long by city standards (about 3 kms). And there are two completely different routes from periyar to aarapalayam. Thus circular bus routes (like gandhipark-to-gandhipark route in Coimbatore) became a reality.
The bus routes are numbered C1 & C2 (unlike using routine numbers as in Coimbatore) ply from Aarapalayam to Aarapalayam in opposite directions. They soon became quite popular. One of the reason is, it crosses through the new shopping area, the wide bye-pass road. The bye-pass road which traditionally devoid of city bus traffic suddenly bestowed with a convenient mode of transport. A welcome relief is that the buses are new, distinctly coloured (to differenciate from regular buses) and neat!
Buoyed by the success, two new circular routes from maatu thavani bus stand to periyar bus stand were introduced as C3 & C4. These buses have a different colour scheme from C1-C2. It seems to be a bigger success.
These buses are curiously named as ‘Vatta Perunthu’ (circular bus or literally – ’round bus!’). Madurai does have a unique way in creating tamil words for english terms. Credit cards are mentioned in shop adverts as ‘Kadan Attaigal’ (literally – loan cards) which is perhaps more apt than positively sounding ‘credit cards’.
