With the Chandigarh Administration clearing decks for the Public Information System (PIS) for CTU buses, the work for the same is expected to start within three months. The ‘much-ambitious’ proposal, which was pending since the last six months, has finally been given a nod by the authorities. The PIS will initially be installed for 100 buses and 50 queue shelters with an estimated cost of Rs 94 lakh.

According to the proposal, the CTU will form a central control room to track movement of the buses. Information along with audio inputs about buses running on a particular route will be displayed at 100 bus and 50 bus queue shelters. The shelters will be connected to a central control room and minute-to-minute progress of the buses’ movement will be updated to these shelters.

The PIS, which will be Global Positioning System (GPS) enabled was proposed to check the aggravating problem of the CTU buses not running as per schedule and deviations from intra-city routes bypassing the stops very often. Now with the installation of this service, the commuters will be benefited, mostly those who travel at a regular basis.

Sources said, I-Built Technologies Ltd, a New Delhi-based company, has been handed the project after successful demonstration.

A total of six companies had applied, out of which, four had presented live demonstrations and only one could qualify.

Initially, in 2002, the project was proposed for offline processing, which was converted into an ‘online real time’ GPS and PIS in 2004.

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