NOIDA: Beginning March 15, the Noida Metro Rail Corporation will introduce 50 low-floor, air-conditioned, disabled-friendly feeder buses across 16 new routes in Noida and Greater Noida, officials said on Tuesday.
The new routes for the buses of the NMRC, which primarily operates the Aqua Line of the metro rail between the twin cities, will replace the current 12 routes on which they run, they said.
“The NMRC will be running a fleet of 50 feeder buses which will be plying on these new routes from March 15 (Friday),” NMRC Executive Director P D Upadhyay said.
It is being done to cater to all the operational metro stations of the Aqua Line in Noida and Greater Noida, he said.
Of the 16 new routes, seven will be covering Noida area, three each for Greater Noida, Greater Noida West and another three between Noida and Greater Noida, the NMRC said in a statement.
The seven routes in Noida include Sector 74 (Cape Town) to Sector 51 metro station, Sector 51 metro station to Sector 137 metro station, Sector 51 metro station to Sector 12/22 (Ring Route), Sector 51 metro station to Sector 32 (RTO Office), Sector 55/56 (Indian Oil Colony) to Sector 51 metro station, Sector 142 metro station to Sector 51 metro station and Sector 142 metro station to Botanical Garden metro station, it said.
The three routes covering Greater Noida include Sharda University Outer Ring Route, metro’s Depot station (GNIDA) to Kasna, Dadri railway station to Gautam Buddha University via Kasna, the statement said.
According to the NMRC, three routes which will be providing feeder bus service to Greater Noida West include Gaur City (Greater Noida West Sector 1) to Sector 51 metro station, Greater Noida West (ACE City) to Sector 51 metro station and Greater Noida West (Sampooranam) to Sector 51 metro station.
Another three feeder buses will run on three routes between Noida and Greater Noida, including NSEZ Metro station to Kasna via AWHO, NSEZ metro station to Dadri via SurajPur and Botanical Garden metro station to Depot station via Greater Noida Authority.
“These routes will be covering almost all the metro stations of the Aqua Line and their nearby areas. It will immensely benefit commuters who have to rely on other modes of local transport to reach the nearest metro stations,” the NMRC said.
“The areas covered by the new routes include prominent residential societies, hospitals, university campuses and important corporate and government offices that fall along the alignment of the NMRC metro corridor,” it said.
The NMRC claimed that its air-conditioned buses are India’s first “true low-floor” buses and are equipped with features like GPS, intelligence transport system, electronic ticketing machines, passenger information system, announcement and digital display, three CCTV cameras, panic button and accessibility for disabled people.
There are a total of 21 metro stations on the 29.7-km all-elevated corridor of the Aqua Line, built for Rs 5,503 crore, of which 15 are in Noida and remaining in Greater Noida.
Source: Press Trust of India
