DTC Worst Among Metros in Breakdown Rate: Report

The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) has the worst bus breakdown rate among the country's major metropolitan cities—and by a margin.

- Snehil Sinha

NEW DELHI: Data shows that DTC's ageing fleet, plagued by poor maintenance and low productivity, has made the city's primary bus provider the most unreliable state-run transporter in the country.

A performance audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), tabled in the Delhi Assembly on March 24, highlights the crumbling state of the city's public bus infrastructure. It found that between 2015-16 and 2021-22, DTC buses recorded a breakdown rate of 2.90 to 4.57 per 10,000 kilometers.

In contrast, cluster buses, operated by the Delhi Integrated Multimodal Transit System (DIMTS), recorded a rate as low as 0.01 to 0.03 in the same period. Mumbai's BEST buses reported a breakdown rate of 0.33 to 0.57, while in Bengaluru and Chennai, the breakdown rates were often below 0.06—more than 50 times lower than DTC's worst performance.

The data points to a stark conclusion: a DTC bus breaks down once every 12 days. In Bengaluru and Chennai, a bus breaks down once every three to five years. And a cluster bus breaks down only once in over six years.