Kozhikode: At 7.57 am in the morning, one bus starts service from the bus stand at Pantheerankavu. By 8.00 am, three other buses also start from the same station. All buses are headed to the city and the buses have to reach at 8.30 am at the finishing point at Mananchira.
Within a span of three minutes, four buses ply along the same route and have to keep the running time of 30 mts. This unscientific schedule is causing a slew of issues for the bus operators.
With minimum running time, the bus drivers have to negotiate damaged roads to keep up with the schedule. In the process, they drive rashly, raising the threat of accidents. In Kozhikode, race on the road, arguments and clashes between the bus employees have become a regular scene.
City to Medical College, City to Beypore, City to Feroke are a few of the routes where these kinds of clashes happen regularly. Kuttiady-Kozhikode is another route plagued by unscientific timing and regulations.
Recently, a bus driver collapsed after being allegedly attacked by an employee from another bus on the same route at the Mofussil bus stand over an argument on the timing. Two months ago, a bus driver was dragged off the bus and beaten up by car passengers alleging speeding.
"It's common here to allot the same starting time to many buses. In such cases, they reach a mutual understanding and fix a few minutes' gap before starting the service. Even then, it causes altercations," said N V Sathar, District Joint Secretary, Bus Operators Association. He said that there must be at least 5 minutes gap between the buses. In some cases, the authorities allot starting time with a few minutes gap. In the routes leading outside the city, a 5 minutes gap was allotted. Still it causes issues, bus drivers have to deal with heavy traffic and low-quality roads.
The bus operators and employees allege that the transport authority follows a 20 years old timing system and still they are being forced to follow it.
At present, the running time from the Kozhikode Mofussil Bus Stand to the Kuttiadi Bus stand is 1.30 hours. "It's very difficult to run 50 kilometres long distance within this shortest time, especially because the condition of the roads on the route is pathetic. So, the operators came to an understanding and extended the running time to 1.50 hours. We are being forced to reach destinations within the shortest time," said a bus operator on the Kuttiadi -Kozhikode route.
In the City limit, each city bus should pass 2.5 kilometres within 5 minutes. For the buses plying to the outer city destinations, the time limit to cover a kilometre is 2 minutes. Though this timing is fine in the rural areas, it's too difficult inside the city limits because of the heavy traffic and crowd.
For limited stop buses, they have to cover 50 kilometres within 1.30 hours and short distance buses get 1.40 hours.
Excess number of buses running on each route adds to the issue. In the city limits, already 400 buses are plying. There was a High Court order to limit the number of buses inside the city to 400. There are allegations that lots of buses are earning permits showing their route being extended to the outer city areas.
"The number of vehicles is increasing. That's the problem we are facing. Fixing the timings is not our personal decisions. It's done following a hearing at the board meeting by the Regional Transport office," said an MVD official.
