In its 40th year, the Kolkata-based City Services continues to do what it knows the best – delivering superior and value-added contractual bus transport solutions to schools, institutions, tourism, and luxury inter-city travel across Eastern India.
Forging a strong mark within Kolkata’s contractual bus transportation industry, City Services boasts a long-standing relationship with the city’s educational and tourism sectors today, with its magic offering of specialised and complete transport solutions for about four decades. Established in 1979, the company has grown by leaps and bounds over the years with a wide range of urban transport services to become an undisputed leader in the industry, with literally no equivalent rivals in the Eastern region whatsoever!
Taking pride in moving people and bringing smiles to communities, the Director, Mr. Anurag Agarwal, couldn’t be more pleased with the evolution of City Services in the last forty years. Speaking to MOTORINDIA, he said: “We have evolved into and sustained a prominent position in the market as a creative logistics company, thanks to our dedicated and innovative provisioning of transport services and efficient management of end-to-end processes”.
A second-generation entrepreneur himself, Mr. Agarwal took over the business baton in 1988 when he was just 18 years old, and is a strong part of the company’s impressive growth story.
He recounts that the company was operating under the business name ‘Urban Services’ undertaking contracts for school buses, which remains to the company primary forte even today with a fleet size of about 900 buses. “The company was reformulated as ‘City Services’ when I assumed the business, thereby gradually expanding our offerings to various sectors”, he said.
Now a leading contract carrier for staff transportation and tourism as well, the company is also running a premium inter-city bus services from Kolkata to various other cities in the region, under a joint venture with Greenline India. Of its massive bus fleet, City Services owns 80% while the rest are hired from its associate partners.
School bus expert
School buses aren’t just yet another typical people mover, but involve multiple dynamics than mere transportation, agrees Mr. Agarwal. “A plethora of safety and managerial efficiency aspects come into the picture, and the transporter has too much responsibilities on his shoulders”, he says, adding that a lot of market dynamics and customer preferences have changed in recent times.
City Services offers life-time contracts – a minimum of five years – to educational institutions to take care of their everyday transportation needs in the fullest way possible. The company is an ace in extending complete solutions in operating dedicated school bus fleet, with multiple packages and additional services-on-demand for them to choose like, for instance, devising routes or fee collection. Three personnel – the driver, helper and a lady escort – for every school bus is standard across all its operations.
“It’s a win-win situation. Our packaged solutions right from manning and maintaining fleets to seemless supervision makes perfect sense for educational institutions, as they benefit from huge cost saving and delegated responsibilities”, observed Mr. Agarwal. Although this model is not uncommon, we do the business in the most standardized and transparent way possible, with a lot of value addition and bit of personal touch, he added.
The company has substantially integrated technology into the school transport eco-system as a means to enhance client satisfaction, safety of passengers and vehicles, and overall operational efficiency. This includes GPS-integrated RFID technology for mobile-app based tracking of buses and school children and WiFi-enabled live cabin cameras. “Air-conditioning has almost become a common feature in school transportation these days while a lot of clients also lay emphasis on new and comfortable vehicles. More and more sophistication and technological integration will drive future growth of this business”, Mr. Agarwal noted.
Future cemented
Asked on the growth dynamics in other operations, the Director replied that both staff transportation and premium inter-city operations are emerging considerably well. “We have added new inter-city routes up to Siliguri, Asansol, Durgapur and Dhaka from Kolkata. A recent MoU with the Government of Sikkim is also unfolding in a big way, while new opportunities out of the proposed BBIN Treaty is quite promising”, he said, although cost-conscious market and cheaper competition impact revenues adversely.
On expanding the reach of City Services beyond the Eastern region, Mr. Agarwal said that school bus operations demand extra dedication and personal attention in terms of management, and felt that delegating it under remote control would negatively impact the efficacy of the entire eco-system. “There is a dearth of quality human resource and managerial skills in the transport sector, resulting in a mediocre transformation”.
Plus, the transport scenario in the Bengal region is quite promising, which means we have a lot more space to explore, he added. “We are developing our own app-based vehicle aggregator platform, quite similar to those popular ones, although restrictive to Kolkata city or suburbs. My company is also in talks with various State transport agencies on new avenues of partnership and engagement, which may take shape in a few months”, revealed Mr. Agarwal.
However, the next big thing that City Services is preparing itself is for e-mobility. The company has already floated an ambitious plan to induct electric buses into its fleet, for school and staff transportation in particular, by 2020. Mr. Agarwal’s close association with PMI Electro Mobility Solutions that is currently manufacturing e-buses in partnership with Chinese manufacturer Foton puts him in a comfortable position to avail the first mover advantage.
“E-buses are the future, no doubt. With high upfront cost, any operator may find the capex challenging and commercially unviable. But with lower maintenance and other savings in the long run, the benefits lie in the opex”, he opined, while making a firm prediction that the cost of battery technology will gradually come down in the coming years.
The operational scenario of school and staff transportation is quite favourable to e-mobility in the country. “Somebody has to make the first move. I firmly believe that, with my expertise and strengths of City Services, we can take up this ambitious plan and derive a commercially successful model of e-mobility in school bus operations. We are ready to take an extra mile”, affirmed Mr. Agarwal.
Preferred brand and fleet dynamics
City Services seems quite unique in the way it custom selects its fleet. The bulk of its fleet, about 80 per cent of them, is of Tata Motors, while the rest is a mix of chassis from Ashok Leyland, Eicher, SML Isuzu, and so on. These buses are predominantly plied for intra-city applications, and hence are largely 9-metre ‘midi’ buses, although the company owns a wide range of buses from 12 to 56 seaters. On the premium side, about 15 Volvo coaches adorn the company’s fleet, used for inter-city operations.
Why Tata Motors? the Director, Mr. Anurag Agarwal, reasons out: “Vehicle fleet is the heart and soul of a transporter, and we are very particular in that regard. The brand is very strong in the Eastern region, and commands a great resale value. It is reliable, technologically-competent, and offers value-for-money proposition… hence we are with them since day one”.
Moreover, the fleet is one-hundred per cent custom-built, except for the Volvo buses, and maintenance is completely done in-house. The company has partnered with many coach builders in the Eastern region and beyond, although the Delhi-based PMI Coaches has become the preferred ally in recent years.
“We source and fabricate buses based on our unique requirements, may it be for school or staff transportation or for tourist charters. Since we pick and choose our package, and service vehicles in-house, we save huge costs”, said Mr. Agarwal, while noting that OEMs like Tata Motors and Volvo Buses have actively supported the company in building in-house service capabilities and state-of-the-art workshops, starting from body repairs to engineering and AC repairs.
The company usually owns the buses for not more than six years. They command good resale value in the region, it claims, since a majority of them are school and staff buses – limited odo mileage, hardly abused, and well-maintained. The Director also said that new buses are inducted every year as an on-going process, with high investments going towards making the fleet more premium and tech-savvy.