[sustran] Re: Chennai battles for sustainable transport

arul rathinam arulgreen at yahoo.com
Wed Feb 22 16:04:30 JST 2006


Dear Brendan Finn, Jain Alok 

Mr. Ct. Meyyappan, Managing Director of Metropolitan
Transport Corporation of Chennai (MTC - the government
owned company) said in a recent conference “The
replacement policy should be such that all vehicles –
that is MTC Buses – above 8 years to be replaced
immediately.  At present 1294 vehicles are above 8
years and it has to be replaced.”

ARUL

--- Brendan Finn <etts at indigo.ie> wrote:

> Alok, 
> 
> It very much depends on the bus design, and also on
> the maintenance regime throughout its life.
> 
> Most buses in western countries would have an
> economic life of about 12 years, after which
> increased maintenance costs make it an increasingly
> unviable proposition. Nonetheless, there is no
> reason why they cannot last many more years. For the
> last decade there has been a thriving business
> throughout the CIS in buses which have been
> discarded by European cities, and are shipped out to
> Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, etc. to get another
> 3-5 years working life. 
> 
> Standard bus life in China is 8 years. A fairly
> respectable 10-metre standard buses costs about
> $20,000. Engines usually outlast the body. Some
> cities are now extending bus life to 10 years, but
> it is not a good proposition to do a major capital
> overhaul of the vehicle at 8 years to get another
> 3-5 years out of it. As a very general statement, it
> is not a problem for Chinese cities to finance bus
> replacements. 
> 
> As I recall most Russian buses of the Soviet era
> (LAZ, LiAZ) also had 8 year design life. This was
> based on a strong production sector which churned
> out fit-for-purpose vehicles. By mid- to
> late-1990's, it became normal to carry out major
> capital repair to extend the vehicle life by 4-5
> years. This usually cost about 25-30% of the price
> of a new vehicle. I don't know whether this was
> normal practice during the Soviet era, I suspect not
> and that it was a practical way of surviving in the
> transition years when they had absolutely no money.
> This never prevented individuals and small companies
> in rural areas from keeping some buses ticking over
> for maybe 20 years, but such extreme long life was
> never practice for city fleets. 
> 
> >From recollection, Sri Lanka doesn't get too much
> productivity out of 8 year old buses, a mix of Tatas
> (?) and Ashok Leylands.
> 
> Just because a bus is 8 years old doesn't make it
> unworkable. However, if normal experience with the
> bus design and local conditions are that most buses
> are deadbeat and spend a lot of time off the road by
> 8 years, then it is reasonable to apply it as a
> threshold. 
> 
> With best wishes, 
> 
> 
> Brendan.
>
_____________________________________________________________________________________
> >From Brendan Finn, ETTS Ltd.   e-mail :
> etts at indigo.ie   tel : +353.87.2530286
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: Jain Alok 
>   To: Asia and the Pacific sustainable transport 
>   Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 3:31 AM
>   Subject: [sustran] Re: Chennai battles for
> sustainable transport
> 
> 
>   > The total number of buses in Chennai is 2773,
>   > out of which 1294 are more then 8 years old.
> That
>   > means Chennai has only about 1500 workable
> buses.
> 
>   Buses more than 8 years old are non-workable? That
> seems a bit odd. I
>   have seen buses older than 10 years working
> perfectly well. In Hong Kong
>   the useful life of the buses is taken as 14 to 17
> years, depending on
>   the body frame.
> 
>   Alok
> > 
> 
>
================================================================
> SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of
> people-centred, equitable and sustainable transport
> with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global
> South'). Because of the history of the list, the
> main focus is on urban transport policy in Asia.


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