During to the ongoing Wuhan Virus pandemic, public transport is changing in many ways. While Delhi Metro and Mumbai Metro have put up stickers on alternating seats asking users to not sit there (read here and here respectively), BEST and other bus operators have earmarked specific seating patterns such as leaving the aisle seats empty and only occupying alternate rows.
In a rather radical move, the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation has decided to amend the seating arrangement in its buses. Reporting for ToI, Christin Mathew Philip states that buses are now only authorised to carry half the passengers that they could earlier. Accordingly, a Rajahamsa bus has been modified.
You can see images of the new arrangement below. Click on the images to see a larger version.
KSRTC has done away with their earlier 2×2 seating and has opted for a 1x1x1 pattern. Instead of two pairs of seats per row, the bus now features three independent seats per row, with its capacity coming down from 39 passengers to 29 passengers. The Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) too has reportedly done the same.
The future of transportation looks very bleak to me however. I wonder what will happen to air-conditioned buses, especially the Volvo and Scania fleet.
Featured Image: A KSRTC Rajahamsa built by Veera Vahana on an Eicher chassis heads to the departure bay to work a Bangalore-Davanagere-Harihar service. This bus is homed at Harihar Depot. Credits: Binai Sankar/Flickr, all rights reserved.
