The government bus road transport corporations (RTCs) have maintained high punctuality and, on an average, 94% of all services depart on time and 95.2% of all buses arrive at the destination on time, according to the latest report (2022) of the Karnataka Evaluation Authority (KEA) of the State Government.
The North-West Karnataka RTC has the highest on-time arrival and departure rates (96.5% and 96.9% respectively) against the KSRTC (95.2% on arrivals and 93.7 % on-time departures), and Kalyana Karnataka RTC (95.2% on-time departure and 93.6% arrival), the report said.
The KEA, which evaluated services of RTCs from 2014-15 to 2019-20, said the buses used for day travel showed a decreasing trend, falling by 4.4%, from 743 to 710 buses.
For night travel, there was an increase in the number of buses from 361 to 424 (17%) over the evaluation period. On an average, a KSRTC bus runs 361 km a day, followed by an NWKRTC bus (348 km), and a KKRTC bus (336 km).
Commuter choices
Only 9% of passengers of KSRTC preferred ordinary buses followed by express (24%), and semi-sleeper (45%).
In NWKRTC, within intra-State services, 55.3% passengers preferred the express services followed by ordinary services (16.1%).
In KKRTC, nearly 45% of the passengers used sleeper services and 19.2% used express services.
More than 60% of passengers reported satisfaction on most components. A high proportion (78%) of passengers found the grievance redressal system good.
In KSRTC, the number of Leyland buses increased from 2,859 in 2014-15 to 3,959 buses in 2019-20 while the number of Tata buses declined from 4,794 to 2,905 during the same period.
The number of Eicher buses increased from mere 10 in 2015-16 to 1,291 in 2019-20. Scania buses increased from 20 in 2015-16 to 75 in 2019-20, the report said.
Average passengers
When it comes to passengers, NWKRTC averaged 488 passengers per bus per day, with KSRTC at 375, and KKRTC at 338. The higher the load factor, the more profitable the operation, provided that fares are set high enough.
The average load factor for KSRTC was 70.4%, followed by KKRTC at 66.0%, and NWKRTC at 62.3%, the report said.
Davangere (77.5%) and Mysuru Urban (77.4%) divisions recorded the highest load factor. Other divisions in the top were Hubballi (75.3%), Dharwad (Rural) (75.4%), and Belagavi (74.72%), the KEA report said.
The average for fuel efficiency was lowest for KSRTC (4.84 km per litre), followed by KKRTC (5.14 kmpl), and NWKRTC (5.19 kmpl).
Falling revenue
All transport corporations have shown a declining trend in fleet utilisation. In 2019-20, the fleet use was 91% for NWKRTC, 85% for KKRTC, and 93% for KSRTC.
The pandemic has impacted RTCs finances as well. KSRTC’s revenue dropped by 50%, from ₹3,156.03 crore in 2019-20 to ₹1,569.71 crore in 2020-21, while NWKRTC’s revenue down by 48% from ₹1,642.05 crore in 2019-20 to ₹ 856.25 crore in 2020-21.
