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Buses on the Fast Track this Season
Mercedes Benz has finally decided to address the Indian bus market
The market for buses in India has really begun to shape up. This is clear from the mood at Auto Expo 2010. A space which for many decades had belonged to Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland and Volvo, is now seeing quite a few players getting serious about the opportunity in public transportation.
Mercedes Benz launched its 3-axle intercity luxury bus priced at Rs. 85 lakh to Rs. 90 lakh
Typically, it takes four years for a private operator to make money on a luxury coach. “It depends a lot on the routes you ply; and the money making routes are pretty much in the southern and western part of India,” said A. Sadik, director, Parveen Travels, Chennai. Sadik is the first person to buy a Mercedes 3-axle bus for his fleet. It will be interesting to see how Mercedes Benz breaks into the bus market where ‘Volvo’ is synonymous with intercity travel. Mumbai-ites can also look forward to some comfort. Sunil Savla, owner of Neeta Volvo, a Mumbai-based operator has placed orders for about 10 buses.
I also bumped into Siddhartha Lal, managing director of Eicher Motors, who was quite kicked about the segment. In fact Eicher Motors also launched a semi low-floor city bus which will be available in diesel and CNG variants. (Lal is really ambitious and he is very serious about his business, but more on him later). Then there was a concept hybrid bus (which runs on a lithium ion battery) from Tata Motors and Marco Polo, which is expected to be launched early next year, along with a plug-in CNG hybrid bus from Ashok Leyland, code-named HYBUS, which would be used during the upcoming Commonwealth games.
PS: Ratan Tata was at the Mercedes Benz stall and was heard to remark – “It’s the best stall at the Expo.” Now that’s some compliment, isn’t it?
Comments 4
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Chinmay DarwhekarHad the worst experience travelling with Neeta Travels. Firstly, we were told by the Ticket Vendor that Mercedes Benz would take us to Mumbai from Pune but we found out the bus to almost 5 to 10 yrs old. Secondly, the A/c was not working throughout the journey and there was nobody on behalf of neeta to handle our grievances. Thirdly, the bus was empty so they were picking passengers wherever they find anybody standing, this experience was nothing less than sitting in S.T. I did a mistake by choosing neeta travels as the mode of transport who would make my travel comfortable but I was completely wrong. Hence I would advice all the readers to think before choosing neeta travels.
on Apr 28, 2014 -
Bharat
This bus been involve in many accident plus rough drivers. And I was been one today cause the bus has only one head light and I was crossing Jamnagar road at Jain temple near Seth nagar rajkot gujrat at 7pm and this bus all most have killed me, thanks Jain god.so I want to tell their owner should know. I will never travel in neeta again.i like to warn driver to take care of their bus head light first and take care of people in their bus plus on road. Or else i am reporting police tomorrow. Thanks
on Jan 14, 2014 -
Fpb
I found the following feedback form on their website which accepts complaints. If enough of consumers complain, surely they will have to take note. Here is the web page for complaints : http://www.neetabus.in/feedback.php
on Nov 18, 2010 -
Sharjeel Sayed
Choosing Neeta Volvo ( http://www.neetatoursandtravels.com ) was the worst mistake I could make for my Hyderabad-Mumbai journey on 5th April 2010.The bus ( No. 8586 ) started a full one hour late from Lakdikapul Stop (8:45 PM as opposed to the promised 7:45 PM) and reached a 2 hours late in Mumbai (11:30 AM at Chembur as opposed to the promised 9:30 AM).The seats were all cramped with no foot rest.Bus was extremely smelly and they were playing loud blaring music (90's Nadeem Shravan songs) and a pirated move ( De Dana Dan ) till 12 midnight making it impossible to sleep.They paid no heed to passenger complaints on the sound. They were stopping frequently for picking up courier and the halts used to be for 30 minutes sometimes. They stopped twice for food, and both times the dhabas/restaurants were extremely bad and pricey.The dinner halt was at 12 AM at a shitty joint where the toilets and the food were comparable in quality.The halt at Lonavala for breakfast ( which was at 9.30 AM) was owned by Neeta travels and they charged us Rs.40 for 3 stale and miniature Idlis.The toilets here were badly maintained too,surprising that they were owned by Neeta Travels. The staff was extremely rude especially with lady passengers and were not informing the passengers,especially new visitors to Mumbai who had requested for stop announcements. And I paid Rs 1000 per ticket for this shitty service whereas other operators provide better services for the same price.I booked my tickets on the same day as the travel and Neeta was the only option available on redbus.in ( no prizes for guessing why). I was also surprised to find that two other passengers had been double booked and were allotted the same seats (13,14) as us, but since they alighted later , the conductor Imran ( 09290913606) "conveniently" seated them further behind on seats 15,16, much to their protest. Their online booking and feedback service is pathetic too so I had to resort to redbus.in for booking and providing my feedback.Surprisingly their website does not have a single email id listed for support, contact or feedback. Mr. Sunil Savla (Neeta founder and proprietor) , I hope you are reading this since your company has no mechanism for taking customer feedback. Ticket No: TC5488488662,PNR # 11008178
on Apr 9, 2010
