The BEST has won the UITP Awards, one of the world’s most coveted prize In public transport.
It was the winner in the ‘Climate and Health’, category and was also among the top three finalists in ‘Public And Urban Transport Strategy’ category.
The award ass announced at Barcelona , said former general manager Lokesh Chandra, who had led the innovations during his tenure in BEST. He was recently transferred to MSEDCL as its managing director.
BEST has received the award for its largest fleet of electric buses in the country and for adopting technology such as tap-in tap-out facility in buses, digital ticketing, premium app based electric buses etc.
It plans to convert the entire fleet to electric and grow it to 10,000 buses to meet global standards by 2027. It will also go for 100% Renewable Energy – entire fleet will be powered by renewable solar energy.
The 700 MW of solar energy needed for this has already been procured. In addition, 330 public EV charging points are also being set up to encourage citizens migrate to electric vehicles.