India to lay on 3,000 extra buses in Delhi alongside further traffic bans

The Delhi government says it will secure 3,000 extra buses to provide alternatives to the car for when it repeats its 'odd-even' experiment of banning cars on alternate days according to their number-plates.

Transport minister Gopal Rai was reported as saying that 1,000 existing buses can be made newly available in Dehli by May by making changes to depots, and that the procurement would start this week so 1,000 additional buses could be on the road from August. A further 1,000 "premium buses" with "air-conditoning, water, magazines, marshals, wi-fi and other facilities" would be introduced for selected routes.

The minister was also quoted as saying that the odds-even policy first implemented earlier this month has had a sigificant impact on congestion, although the Government was still collating and interpreting data, and might be repeated after March.