Long distance travellers have a harrowing time as many buses from the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) Central depot here get delayed due to technical difficulties in entering data to the newly- introduced GPRS-enabled Electronic Ticket Machines (ETMs).
The new machines introduced with much fanfare by the KSRTC as part of implementing an Intelligent Transport System (ITS) proved to be ineffective without sufficient technical backing from the Corporation’s offices.
For the past few days, many a long-distance service from the Central depot here were either delayed or rescheduled as the central server went down many times due to overflow of inputs.
The ETMs that work on General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) are centrally connected to the KSRTC’s server. The machines were expected to carry out real-time data transfer directly to the control room at Transport Bhavan, the KSRTC headquarters here.
It is expected to provide information such as the distance covered, number of passengers travelling in the bus, number of tickets sold between bus stops, the frequency of the service, the details of late running and the running time.
However, the authorities failed to hand over ETMs to the conductors on time as the data entering process to the machines were not carried out due to server problems. The authorities provided ticket racks, which had not been in use since the ETMs were introduced, when the attempts to rectify the problem did not work out.
“We have been trying to solve the problems of the server. Most of the technical problems were rectified so far. The machines will function well soon as the system has been restored,” K M Irshad, KSRTC chief traffic manager and in charge of executive director (operations) said.
The GPRS-enabled ETMs were bought at an expense of Rs 9,500 each by the Corporation aiming at reducing manual labour. 150 GPRS ETMs were distributed in the Thiruvananthapuram depot.
Source: New Indian Express
