Unified transport authority in the offing?
The government has started a discussion on a unified transport authority for bus and suburban and metro rail services. To begin with, they will examine the possibility of feeder buses from the MRTS stations and unified passes that one can use on the bus and train. This can then be extended to the suburban trains running up to Tambaram and beyond in the South, and Avadi and beyond towards the North. Most of the large cities of the world have such a unified transport authority, or at least a common payment mode such as pass, for the various modes of mass transit. Paris has the ‘Carte Orange’ (the Orange Pass), a weekly pass that one can use on the Metro as well as the bus system. New York has the Port Authority that oversees everything from the many subway train lines, buses, water taxis etc. Initiating such a system now would be timely, well ahead of the metro rail system so that by the time that opens, this will have become a well settled system.
The referred system of issuing tickets or passes both for tain and bus ravel is not a new one for our country. In the past of about 3 decades back the present Kanyakumari district in Tamilnadu have not seen even a train. Then itself the train tickets were issued upto Nagercoil beyond Thirunelvai where the the train facility end. But the pasenge can continue the journey with the same ticket through buses upto their destination. This system was then followed even for cargoes, in goods train, I think.
The referred system of issuing tickets or passes both for tain and bus ravel is not a new one for our country. In the past of about 3 decades back the present Kanyakumari district in Tamilnadu have not seen even a train. Then itself the train tickets were issued upto Nagercoil beyond Thirunelvai where the the train facility end. But the pasenge can continue the journey with the same ticket through buses upto their destination. This system was then followed even for cargoes, in goods train, I think.