Roadmap for development of sustainable finances for HDBRTS operations
The city bus transport systems in India are witnessing financial constraints for bus operations which have led to decline of public transport service delivery. Lack of sustainable funding sources and conventional management practices have also limited innovations and adoption of technology for creating efficiencies in the bus operations. According to the Central Institute of Road Transport (CIRT) publication, urban state transport undertakings (STUs) recovered only 55.1% of their total cost during 2017-18. HDBRTS is a high capacity BRTS system between Hubli-Dharwad which had a pre-covid ridership of over 1 lakh passengers per day served by 100 AC buses. BRT services are unable to meet the cost of operation through fare box. These services require consistent and reliable revenue stream to bridge the gap between operating expenses and revenue. The system needs to improve its share of non-fare box revenue and create innovative financing mechanism for ensuring financial sustainability.
