Bhubaneswar: The latest fleet of special purpose vehicle (SPV)-under the Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT), which seeks to transform the mobility of the city commuters and add to the number of city buses plying on the roads, arrived in the city, Wednesday.
The 29 buses would be customised for the city before they are launched. More buses are slated to arrive soon to cater to the needs of the citizens and the expected visitor surge ahead of the World Cup hockey in next month.
A senior CRUT official said the manufacturers were likely to provide an additional 56 new midi buses by Friday.
“As the entire city is going to have around 200 buses, 100 will be provided by Ashok Leyland (including the 29 that arrived Wednesday) and the rest will be provided by Tata Motors”, the official said.
The buses are currently parked at the depot of the manufacturer and later would be brought to the CRUT bus depot at Bhagabanpur. Once the buses reach the CRUT depot, the branding will be done on them. “The city bus service project will become operational before World Cup hockey,’’ the CRUT official added.
The midi buses will have a capacity to host 28 passengers. The buses are non-air-conditioned, but AC buses are also expected soon. The other 100 buses will be divided into 50 standard air-conditioned buses and 50 standard types. A standard bus will have capacity of 43 seats. The standard buses are likely to be supplied by Tata Motors.