Government mulling to introduce bus facility at airport

After the crisis-hit airport metro service built at a cost of thousands of crore fails to attract commuters, the Ministry of Urban Development is seeking alternative plans to provide transportation to flyers at Indira Gandhi International Airport. The ministry is mulling to introduce bus facility for flyers at the airport.

The ministry is carrying out a survey and studying the pattern of means of transportation flyers generally takes after they come of the airport and they take to reach the airport. “The study is being carried out to see whether bus facilities could be introduced at the airport,” said an official from the ministry. 

As buses and auto-rickshaws are not allowed to ply to both domestic and international airport, people are left with only one option – hiring private taxis.  On the need of carrying a study, the official said, “A commuter living in Defence Colony or New Friends Colony will not use airport metro service. They will use their vehicle or hire private taxis,” said the official. 

He also said that very less number of 23-km airport metro express line are being used by commuters as they will not take pain to reach at the airport with heavy luggage at the metro and then will move towards airport. “It is not feasible. A proper analytical study is needed to know the pattern,” added the official.

On other hand, the use of taxis and private vehicles by the flyers most of time create traffic chaos at both domestic and international airport. People sometimes face parking problems. The foreign tourists face problems as they are being targeted by the touts, who in form taxi driver, are very active outside the airport. “Many touts are active in the area and we have been regularly taking action against them,” said a senior police officer.

Despite that the problems persist. The only saviors are pre-paid taxi booths managed by traffic police and private taxi operators -- Meru Cabs and Mega Cabs. But the commuters also face problems as they have to wait for long to get taxis.

This has also led the ministry to conduct the study. 

The ministry sought help from Delhi Traffic police to study the pattern of traffic flow. The police provided of 20 days figure of flyers using various mode of transportation from the airport.  Last year, between November 16 to December 5, 48606 commuters used pre-paid taxis and 28178 flyers used Meru and Mega cabs from terminal 1.  During the same period, 45815 people used pre-paid taxis and 35000 used Meru and Mega cabs from terminal 3.

The ministry is planning to introduce bus services to various parts of the city and for that they are checking all the pros and cons before introducing it. A ministry official also opined that airport metro service has not become a successful venture. 

ENDS