But the DTC bus driver makes a mistake at the Institute of Driving, Training and Research (ITDR), Sarai Kale Khan, when Newsline visited on Tuesday. During a training session for drivers who would steer through the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor from this April, his left rear tyre gets stuck in the bushes along pavement of the training track.

Result: a couple of traffic marshals had to “rescue” the bus. On “real” road, Lal says, it would have been quite a disaster. “We have been told to drive along the pavement and keep to our lane,” Lal says, slightly embarrassed. “I never knew I could make such a silly mistake.”

But that, says Manoj Aggarwal, head of transport, DIMTS, is a mistake seen most often among drivers undergoing the training course. “Shyam Lal’s mistake was natural because despite years of driving, he has no experience in lane-driving,” Aggarwal says. “He could not swerve around a turn properly.”

DIMTS, the special purpose vehicle in charge of implementing the BRT corridor has been sending batches of DTC and Blueline bus drivers to ITDR for special training. The idea is to ensure safety along the corridor. “We have designed a three-day module to train drivers on etiquette, and also how to drive in one lane,” Aggarwal says.

The low-floor buses have a width of 2.6 metres; the segregated lane is about 3.3 meters wide. As a result, there’s little scope for overtaking.

Driver confidence high
Meanwhile, impressed with the new “green buses”, Shyam Lal tides over his little slip soon enough. “It is a new system that requires discipline and patience,” he says, “because it is a low-floor bus. So it will take some time but it will be less stressful in the long run.”

Aggarwal says the primary emphasis is on training drivers for low-floor buses, which “need to be stopped just next to the platforms at the bus shelters”. This is to ensure, first, passenger convenience while getting on the bus and, second, for the pneumatic doors to shut automatically. But, “these small details are new for our drivers.”

At the institute, the training module includes following traffic marshals’ instructions and road markings without overtaking since the BRT corridor stresses heavily on disciplined lane-driving through road markings, colour-coding and signages, Aggarwal says. Some 80 drivers have been trained in the past one month; they would also undergo training on simulators to get a “feel” of the new buses, he adds.

DTC has inducted 60-odd low-floor buses. The Capital is slated to have about 2,500 semi-low-floor and low-floor buses by 2010 Commonwealth Games.