Ahmedabad: Remember those red-coloured double-decker buses ferrying passengers between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar a few years back? Yes, these buses which are an integralpart of the Mumbai and London traffic scenario, will be back on the city's roads very soon, if the plans of the Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service (AMTS) go through. The transport body of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation wants to introduce double decker buses as part of its schemes to attract more tourists on its coaches.
Very few people are aware of the AMTS's tourist coach service. Though this facility attracted more visitors in 2009 compared to 2008, the figure is only marginal. Only 7,689 persons used the tourist package in 2009 and AMC earned just Rs4.61 lakh as revenue from it. The figures for 2008 were 6,447 and Rs3.86 lakh.
"Not many people in the city know that such a service is available and that too at an affordable cost for sight seeing in the city," an AMTS official said. He added that the tourist coach is run even if there are only a couple of passengers in it — which is the case most of the time.
The major reason for the failure of this coach could be lack of interesting places covered on the route. The course of the tourist coach is Sidi Saiyad Ni Jali, Balvatika, Gandhi Ashram, Sardar Patel Smarak, Hutheesing Temples, Shreyas Foundation and LD Museum.
AMTS chairman Praveen Patel agreed that the route needs to be revamped.
"We are planning to introduce double-decker coaches like the ones seen in European countries," he said. Patel also said that new places such as Sarkhej Na Roja, Tri-Mandir and the Adalaj step-well will be included on the route. Later, the Sabarmati Riverfront could also be one of the stops, he added.
The transport body obviously needs to focus on the marketing strategy of the coach to attract more tourists. If the state government is planning to boost tourism in the state, the tourist coach needs to be popularised. An AMTS official said, large number of hotels are coming up in the city. So AMTS could have a tie-up with them to get more passengers for the tourist coach. In that way, the coaches will be a source of revenue and not suffer losses, as is the case right now.
0 comments:
Post a Comment