APSRTC adds 2 Night Rider buses to fleet

Visakhapatnam: Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) launched two new sleeper-cum-seater bus services to Tirupati from Visakhapatnam. The corporation named the service Night Rider as the buses will be useful to passengers who need sleeper berths , said K Venkata Rao, deputy chief traffic manager, Visakhapatnam.

These services will operate on a daily basis. The bus will leave Dwaraka Bus Station in Visakhapatnam city at 3 pm every day and reach Tirupati at 4.15 am the next day. On its return, it will leave Tirupati at 4.15 pm and reach Visakhapatnam at 8 am the next day.

“We operated one bus from Visakhapatnam to Tirupati so far. We got 50 per cent occupancy ratio on the first trip and we hope that this service would be helpful to the passengers who do not get reserved seats in the trains,” Rao told TOI.

Each bus has 42 seats, which includes 20 sleeper berths. There are 15 upper berths and five lower berths in each bus. The buses are each built with a 230 HP front-mounted engine with five forward and one reverse gear. Each seat is provided with an USB port and all berths have charging points for mobile phones.

Each bus has three surveillance cameras and one reverse camera and is provided with two roof escape hatches.

Rao said that an upper berth is charged Rs 1,870 per passenger while a lower berth costs Rs 2,040. For a non-sleeper berth, a passenger can travel in the bus for Rs 1,620 from Visakhapatnam to Tirupati, he said.

A senior RTC official said that these sleeper bus services are in demand between Visakhapatnam and Tirupati as there are insufficient trains between the city and the temple town.