BEST commuters stumped by hi-tech buses to ‘nowhere’

Commuters of the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) are increasingly finding ‘route-less’ buses with stark blank destination boards.

Most of the route indicators on the new buses that are made of glowing Light Emitting Diode (LEDs) have either stopped functioning or are switched off.

At times, bus conductors try to write the route numbers with chalk, but most of them are too faint and illegible.

“A BEST bus halts at a bus stop for a few seconds. And when the LED indicators are off, it becomes a problem to identify the bus route,” Shriniwas Kelkar, a commuter on bus route 545, said.
The new buses procured under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission mostly have LED route indicators with no back-up indicators.

Staff at Wadala and Anik depots said the BEST does not have adequate staff to maintain this “new accessory.”

“There is always a problem with the frequency of the buses. When a bus arrives after a delay with no destination board, it really frustrates the commuters,” Shaila Rai, a commuter activist, said.

BEST said that there were around 850 buses with LED indicators of which 150 were non-functional and that they were trying to work on the problem. BEST chairman Sanjay Potnis said, “It is a genuine complaint and we are addressing it. The LED screens have been giving problems and we are working out a permanent solution to the problem.”