Chennai will get 500 low-floor electric buses by April 2025

On Tuesday, Tamil Nadu Transport Minister SS Sivasankar made an announcement that these 12-meter-long buses will be operated under the Gross Cost Contract (GCC) model. This project has been given to the subsidiary OHM Global Mobility and Switch Mobility Automotive of Ashok Leyland.

These include 400 non-AC and 100 AC buses of the new fleet, each of which is capable of covering up to 180 km on a single charge. These will operate from five MTC depots: Perumbakkam, Thirumudivakkam, Poonamallee, Vyasarpadi, and Perambur.

He said the MTC will deploy conductors and monitor the revenue collection. According to the official release, the operating cost for non-AC buses was fixed at Rs 77.16 per kilometer while for AC buses it would come to Rs 80.86 per kilometre. This would reduce the existing diesel bus operating cost of the MTC by Rs 116 per kilometre.