Busworld India kickstarts in Mumbai

Mumbai, February 1, 2013: The fifth Indian edition of the three- day trade exhibition for the bus and coach industry, Busworld India was inaugurated by Jeevanrao Gore, chairman, Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) today. The inaugural session saw the presence of Manjunath Prasad, MD, Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation, PS Ananda Rao, executive director, Association of Road Transport Undertakings, DP Saste, head (safety & homologation), Central Institute of Road Transport, Srikant Marathe, director, ARAI and other dignitaries. On the sidelines of day one, Scania launched its buses and coaches for the Indian market. Named Scania Metrolink, the company has launched two- and three-axle 45-, 49- and 53-seater buses.

Prasad of KSRTC spoke about the importance of the intelligent transport system (ITS). With the support of the World Bank, KSRTC introduced the ITS on a fleet of 500 buses in Mysore. Prasad informed that he is planning to now extend the ITS across the entire state-owned fleet of nearly 8,000 buses which will cost Rs 30 crore and will be funded by state’s own resources. He also disclosed that the planned extension of the ITS across the existing fleet will be executed within the next six months.

Speaking to Autocar Professional, Prasad revealed that KSRTC plans to invest Rs 500 crore across its operations this year and will add another 1,500 buses to its fleet. Meanwhile, according to him, the priorities for KSRTC for this year will be to focus on cost cutting in the areas of tyres, spares, body building and others.

With a similar viewpoint, Gore of MSRTC told Autocar Professional that the state-owned Road Transport Corporation will focus in the areas of research, building bus bodies and overall workshop operations. “On an average, we add around 2,000-2,500 buses to our fleet each year which are more or less assembled in our workshops. We purchase the 35-seater minibuses where Tata Motors is the major supplier,” he added.

Didier Ramoudt, president, Busworld International, highlighted the concept of the event explaining that “Busworld is aimed to support the coach and bus builders across the world. This year, our objective is to focus on the sustainable public transport system, increased fuel efficiency, ITS and hybridisation.” He also mentioned about the Busworld Academy aims at bringing in the experts, engineers, leaders and politicians to discuss innovations in the domains of public transport concepts, safety and improvement areas. Highlighting climate changes, air quality and fuel prices, Thulin Krister, marketing director, Scania Commercial Vehicles India, stressed on the use of bio- fuels such as biogas, bioethanol and biodiesel. Giving the example of the city transport system of Stockholm where all buses run on bio fuels, he said that the sustainable public transport system is a combination of advanced buses which use bio-fuels.

India is the second largest market in the world for buses and coaches with a demand for buses and coaches above 8 tonnes GVW which is twice as big as the demand in Western Europe. Busworld India is jointly organised by Busworld International, Belgium and India-based Inter Ads Exhibitions.

AMIT PANDAY