Sound Familiar?

The prime minister's in the Indian capital of New Delhi today...

A car priced the same as a luxury TV? At about 76 rupees to the pound sterling, soon to be owner of Jaguar and Land Rover Tata’s diminutive four seat Nano costs £1,250 brand new, in its native country, of course. As if India’s urban streets aren’t already congested to bursting point. And Indian motorbike manufacturer Bajaj will offer the rival Lite four-seater from 2010, at 154,000 rupees or £2,000.

The burgeoning Delhi metropolis is already congested and dangerously polluted. Could the efforts of the local administration to encourage passengers back on to buses be undermined by the Nano and Lite?

Delhi’s buses are undergoing something of a transformation—in theory. But it’s not all super-low-floor-good-news. Yes, there’s been investment in brand new SLFs but the latest January 2008 Delhi bus order—for 1,000 *conventionally* floored non-air conditioned vehicles—reverts to old thinking. The order’s worth INR 100mil. Delhi flirted with SLFs a year ago and has subsequently ordered 1,500, some 500 of which arrived in September. Even so, the much-awaited mass conversion to the High Capacity Bus System low floor fleet remains, well, awaited. DTC blames the poor quality of Delhi’s roads, adding that the SLFs are “fragile”.

Bus is the only hope for Delhi. Rail accounts for such an insignificant number of travellers overall that it isn’t worth little further consideration. It’s said the bus accounts for 60 per cent of all passenger journeys, a good foundation upon which to build. To mitigate environmental disaster, Delhi has embarked upon a compressed natural gas (CNG) bus conversion programme, yielding the world’s largest fleet of such vehicles. It’s not been an easy path, though. The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) openly resisted right up to the 2001 wire. Neither is CNG particularly suited to the hot climate associated with Delhi. DTC’s made the most of it, though, by adopting the strapline “The world’s largest eco-friendly CNG bus service”, even if the dented exterior of some of it buses appear slightly less environmentally sound.

The stalwarts of the Delhi fleet remain the Ashok Leyland Cheetahs, albeit now converted to CNG, plus Tatas. Both companies have their roots in colonial times. Tata’s go back to the first Imperial steelworks outside the UK, in the 1890s. Ashok Leyland was part of the Rover Group till 1987, the name and indeed badge give it away as springing from the UK, first established in 1948 to assemble Austins.

The Ashok Leylands feature stark, square and gaunt dual door bodywork and a chrome Leyland roundel. The erstwhile tractor & trailer articulated Ashok Leyland Comets with two conductors serving the double deck trailer have now gone. Conductors nonetheless remain on many of Delhi’s swollen buses.

Does all this sound slightly familiar? Environmental and congestion problems know no boundaries.

Principal operator—Delhi Transport Corporation
Most common vehicles—Ashok Leylands and Tatas
Buses—some 10,000
Depots—34
Population of the Delhi Metropolis—14 mil