The Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) will introduce the Global Positioning System (GPS) in its fleet of buses and the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) as part of implementing an intelligence transport system (ITS).
The introduction of the GPS and GPRS in the ailing undertaking is part of a technology upgrade being worked out by the management to streamline services and tide over the crisis, official sources told The Hindu on Saturday.
Plan funds would be utilised for executing the project. The GPS would be introduced to track the movement of 6,000-odd buses in the KSRTC fleet. Besides, the operation wing would be able to avoid bunching of services and give directions to the bus crew. The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) would execute the project.
The GPS mounted on the bus would receive the longitude and latitude coordinates from a satellite through a process of triangulation. This information would be sent across to the control station through wireless communication. Those in the control room could monitor the vehicle on the route map and see where it was stationed, whether it was running on schedule, and the number of buses in a particular sector.
Operational costs
The KSRTC could reduce operational costs by avoiding delay. The sources said the corporation had already decided to go for new electronic ticket machines as part of introducing the GPRS. Tenders had been invited for these machines as the existing ones were over four-and-a-half years old.
With the introduction of the GPRS, real time data transfer would be possible directly to the control room that would come up at the Transport Bhavan.
Authorities could keep tabs on the collection of each schedule and that of depots across the State. The sources said schedules could be cancelled if the minimum collection of Rs.1,500 was not achieved and services could be streamlined.
The corporation had also worked out plans for introducing a passenger information system (PIS) and streamlining the online reservation of tickets.
Source: The Hindu
