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AMTS’s flying squad finds itself managing passengers

With auto rickshaws going off the roads, daily commuters had little choice but to throng bus depots in the city.

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The Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service (AMTS)’s flying squad donned a new and rather unusual role, in the wake of the three-day auto rickshaw strike.

While they’re generally supposed to keep a vigilant eye on the AMTS’s functioning, they found themselves busy with passenger management on Tuesday!

With auto rickshaws going off the roads, daily commuters had little choice but to throng bus depots in the city. And in order to handle the sudden increase in passenger inflow, as also to ease congestion, the AMTS deployed its flying squad teams at ten busy junctions in the city.

“We had identified ten locations where commuter inflow and traffic were expected to be at their peak, and had appointed the flying squad to keep an eye on these spots.

The squad was asked to manage the AMTS’s passenger traffic, and to ensure that people do not face trouble in boarding the buses,” said AMTS chairman Pravin Patel.

The AMTS bosses also ran 703 buses on Tuesday, as against the usual fleet of 670. “The auto rickshaw strike also caused our income to increase from around Rs13 lakh a day to Rs17.11 lakh on Tuesday,” said Patel.

On the other hand, the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS), which runs on a 34-km network in the city, also benefited from the rickshaw strike.

On Tuesday, the BRTS witnessed an increase of around 35% in its income, by 7.00 pm. Its income had touched over Rs5 lakh, and around 95,000 passengers were expected to have taken the BRTS, said Ahmedabad Janmarg Limited (AJL) officials responsible for the RTO to Soni ni chaali stretch.

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