Delhi Transport Corporation



The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) is a public sector passenger road transport corporation that manages bus services in Delhi, India. It was incorporated in November 1971 as a wholly owned Corporation of the Government of India under Section 3 of the Road Transport Corporations Act, 1950, to provide an efficient, economical and properly coordinated road transport service in Delhi. Its administrative control was transferred to the Department of Transport, Government of Delhi with effect from 5 August 1996.

As of November 2023, DTC is the largest CNG-powered bus service operator in the world, and also has the largest number of electric buses in India. It operates from 37 depots and 3 ISBTs across Delhi - the Kashmere Gate ISBT, the Anand Vihar ISBT, and the Sarai Kale Khan ISBT.

History
The Ministry of Transport, Government of India, took over local bus services in Delhi in May 1948 when the services offered by the incumbent service provider Gwalior and Northern India Transport Company Ltd. was found to be insufficient for the growing demand. For this purpose, a Delhi Road Transport Authority was constituted under the Road Transport Corporation Act, 1950. This authority became an undertaking of Municipal Corporation of Delhi by an Act of Parliament in April, 1958.

In 1971, on the recommendations of a working group of the Planning Commission, which concluded that Delhi Transport as an extension of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi had not been functioning efficiently and adequately that was leading to leakage of revenue and very high operational costs, the Government of India took over management of the undertaking by passing the Delhi Road Transport Laws (Amendment) Act. The newly constituted Delhi Transport Corporation took over assets and liabilities from the DTU up until 2 November 1971.

The administrative control of DTC was transferred to the Department of Transport, Government of Delhi, with effect from 5 August 1996 after writing off all the Union government loans along with the interest accrued on them (amounting to inr 21230000000).

Overview
The objectives of the Delhi Transport Corporation are laid down by Section 18 read with Delhi Road Transport Laws (Amendment) Act, 1971, and Section 22 of Road Transport Corporation Act, 1950, and comprise the following responsibilities:


 * To provide an efficient, economical, reliable and properly coordinated system of road transport in Delhi and any extended area (while acting on business principles).
 * To achieve a high level operational efficiency.
 * To charge fares not exceeding those prescribed by the State Under Section 43(1)(i) of the Motor Vehicles Act.
 * To attain financial self-sufficiency.

Organization Structure
Management of the corporation is vested with a board of directors that comprise the Chairman-cum-Managing Director (CMD) and directors appointed by Government of Delhi. The CMD is the organization's Chief Executive and manages its day-to-day operations with the assistance of four Chief General Managers, six Regional Managers and Depot Managers. As of November 2023, Kailash Gahlot, Transport Minister, Government of Delhi, serves as the Chairman of DTC, while its managing director is Shilpa Shinde, a 2006 batch IAS officer of AGMUT cadre.

Services
DTC has an extensive network of bus routes spread all over Delhi. A few routes also go into the neighboring cities of Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, and Faridabad. As of June 2023, of the 606 total bus routes in Delhi, 259 were operated by DTC, 209 were operated by DIMTS, and 138 routes were operated on by both the authorities under the Department of Transport's 'Unified Time Table'. These routes are serviced by 7,135 buses, with 4,088 of them under DTC, out of 37 depots and 3 ISBTs. The average number of trips in FY 2021-22 was 31,084 per day. The number of routes being operated by the corporation has been steadily falling over the years under the Delhi government's policy of a 50:50 ratio of DTC buses and cluster buses on every route.

DTC also provides various other services like night services, tourist services, and airport express services. It also provides buses to Delhi Police and used to do so for some schools (however, this was stopped in July 2022).

Inter-state bus services
DTC used to operate interstate bus services to cities in North India till 2010, when it was discontinued after its fleet switched to CNG, a fuel that was not readily available in other states at the time. As of 2023, the Delhi government has plans to relaunch this service with 1,600 premium buses connecting several major north Indian cities like Dehradun, Jaipur, Shimla, Chandigarh, Amritsar, Jammu, and Agra, among others, with Delhi. The buses will be operated by the DTC in agreement with the selected private players. Of these 1,600 buses, 1,200 are planned to be electric buses that connect cities up to 200 km, and 400 are planned to be BS-VI CNG buses for cities that lie beyond that distance.

Fleet
As of September 2023, DTC has a fleet of 4,088 buses, with 3,288 CNG buses and 800 electric buses. This makes its fleet the largest CNG bus fleet in the world, and the largest electric bus fleet in India. The buses are dispatched from 37 bus depots across Delhi. With Delhi's having a total of 7,135 buses, this means that 57% of these belong to DTC.

DTC has witnessed 2 major fleet improvements in its history. The first significant overhaul to its fleet happened for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, when DTC got approximately 3,125 new CNG low-floor buses (2500 first, followed by 625), which increased its fleet size to a high of 6,204 buses. This was the first time that DTC got low-floor buses, and since then, all of its orders have been of these types of buses. The new buses were AC and non-AC Tata-Marcopolo low-floor Starbuses and Ashok Leyland ULF buses. The AC ones were colored red while non-AC ones were colored green so that they could be easily recognized. These new buses had many features such as automatic transmission, power steering, ramps for disabled people, and stop-request buttons located on grab bars. With the addition of these buses, Delhi's fleet of 2,400 privately owned 'killer' blueline buses was also phased out. In 2011, DTC planned to make use of biogas generated from sewage treatment plants to run its buses.

The second major improvement to DTC's fleet was started in 2021 when the Delhi government decided to purchase only electric buses from then on. Following that, with deliveries of buses in multiple batches,  DTC's electric buses have reached a strength of 800, which is the largest fleet of e-buses in India. The new buses feature digital ticketing, GPS, CCTV, and panic buttons, all connected to a two-way centralized command and control centre at Kashmere Gate. The Delhi government has plans to provide a total of 1,800 new electric buses to DTC by the end of 2023.

Depots
DTC operates its buses from 37 bus depots categorized into 4 regions: East, North, South & West. Each region is headed by a Regional Manager, and each depot is headed by a Depot Manager. 36 of these depots are located in Delhi, with 1 located in the neighboring city of Noida. These facilities perform regular maintenance and cleaning of buses. To complement DTC's existing depots, Delhi government is constructing 9 new bus depots at Kirari, East Vinod Nagar 2, Narela, Daurala, Burari, Savda Ghevra, Kapashera, Gadaipur, and Chattarpur.

The list of DTC's depots is as follows:

Routes
Here are all the listed bus routes in and around Delhi NCR

Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS)
Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS) Limited is transport consultancy and infrastructure development company. It is a joint venture company with equal equity of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) and the IDFC Foundation (a not-for-profit initiative of Infrastructure Development Finance Company Limited).

The buses of DIMTS are orange (Non AC) and blue (AC). it has a fleet of 1725 buses deployed under the cluster scheme have state-of-the-art technology to guide and monitor them. They have been equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS) devices so that their movement and geographic location are tracked by the Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) system on real-time basis that provides ETA and other data to the passengers by PoochhO App, the App also has trip planner, pollution status in vicinity and other features. Electronic Ticketing Machines (ETM) are being used on these buses in place of pre-printed tickets as part of the automated fare collection (AFC) system, since August 2018 it is possible to use DMRC Metro Card to buy tickets in DIMTS' buses. Under the scheme the private concessionaires, who would be allotted clusters, would bring in their buses, arrange for their cleaning and maintenance and provide for the staff. For the services rendered, the concessionaire would be paid on the basis of an indexed cost system that would have a fixed component based on the cost of the bus, a variable component that would factor in the fuel and maintenance costs and a component that would deal with the wages cost keeping in mind the consumer price index.