HYDERABAD: Passengers who have to travel long distances to buy bus tickets through reservation system don’t have to worry anymore. The Andhra Pradesh Road Transport Corporation is planning to take its authorised agents to doorsteps of passengers to provide better service and improve occupancy ratio. According to RTC officials, of the 61 lakh tickets available per month for sale for 5,700 bus services, they are only able to sell 15 lakh tickets. Of these, 6 lakh tickets are sold through agents and the remaining through booking centres.The APSRTC has 820 authorised ticket booking agents in the state, who are appointed through tender system and in selected places.The officials feel that to sell the remaining 45 lakh tickets, they would have to liberalise the setup and accordingly they are planning to appoint agents without calling tenders and make them deliver tickets at the doorsteps of passengers. At present the corporation is getting Rs 16 crore through sale of tickets and paying Rs 63 lakh as commission to agents.Recently, APSRTC introduced Volvo, Garuda, Indra and Vennela buses and now it wants to increase occupancy of these new services and the existing ones.With the corporation reportedly incurring losses of Rs 362 crore, an RTC official said the new system of delivering tickets at the houses of passengers would help to improve occupancy rates and improve revenue collections.
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