BEST to run more women’s special buses on busy routes

To enhance safety of women travelling in buses, the Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking has directed the traffic department to operate additional women’s special buses during peak hours on crowded routes. Prajakta Chavan Rane reports.

To enhance safety of women travelling in buses, the Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking has directed the traffic department to operate additional women’s special buses during peak hours on crowded routes.

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This will include areas such as CST, Churchgate, Kurla, Jogeshwari, Santacruz, Andheri and Bandra.

“We have instructed the chief manager, traffic, to operate additional special women’s buses every 15-20 minutes if there are enough passengers during peak hours. The required assessment will be carried out by the traffic department to fix the schedule,” said OP Gupta, BEST general manager.

The BEST undertaking has added four ladies special buses in its fleet since the start of the month.

The undertaking has also conducted a survey of around 3,500 bus shelters to check whether there is adequate lighting.

It has even instructed that BEST and police helpline numbers be displayed inside the buses,

“The instructions given for enhancing safety of women passengers should be in place by February 1. In addition, CCTV cameras will be also installed in all buses by March 31. Also, we are carrying out sensitisation programmes for our outdoor staff with the help of NGOs,” said Gupta.