Chennai: Tiruvallur commuters seeking to catch southbound buses from Kilambakkam say limited services can leave them waiting up to three hours. They want more frequent, faster buses with timings aligned to southbound departures from Kilambakkam.Bus 297 makes 12 daily trips—six each from Tiruvallur and Kilambakkam—covering 24 stops. The first service leaves at 5am and the last at 8.25pm. The route passes through Manavalan Nagar, Murukkancheri, Thirumazhisai, Poonamallee, Chembarambakkam and Thirumudivakkam Sidco before reaching Kilambakkam. The nearly three-hour journey leaves little room for delays or missed connections.Tiruvallur, a district headquarters and industrial town, sees thousands of office-goers and college students travel to Chennai every day. It also has a large floating population from across Tamil Nadu. While suburban trains connect the town to Chennai, the shift of long-distance southbound services from CMBT to Kilambakkam has added another leg for passengers travelling south.Commuters want buses at least once an hour, or every 30 minutes during peak periods. They say the new Tiruvallur terminus, made functional on Aug 10 near Vedanginallur, has the capacity to support additional services. The terminus is spread over 5.5 acres and can accommodate 56 buses simultaneously.Y Jayapaul Raj, state secretary, Consumer Confederation of India, said, “Kilambakkam has effectively become the gateway for southbound travel from Chennai, but that shift has not been matched by feeder connectivity from places such as Tiruvallur. Public transport planning should look at the entire journey rather than treating each leg as a separate service.”K Bhaskar, a resident of Tiruvallur, said, “For someone travelling south, reaching Kilambakkam from Tiruvallur is almost like crossing the city twice. I usually take a suburban train to Chennai Central and then have to find a bus towards Kilambakkam, which can take close to three hours depending on the connections. Instead, there should be a service that takes the inner-city route through Poonamallee, Porur, Vadapalani, Ekkatuthangal, airport, Chromepet, Tambaram and Vandalur before reaching Kilambakkam. That would connect Tiruvallur directly to both the city and the southern terminus and save commuters from making multiple changes.”TNSTC officials said the feasibility of increasing services from Tiruvallur to Chennai and Kilambakkam was being assessed and action would be taken at the earliest.
