Kolkata Trams to soon have colour-coded routes

Various initiatives have been taken by the West Bengal Transport Corporation (WBTC) to once again popularize the age-old heritage transportation medium of trams. Now the corporation is introducing colour-coded maps to make travel easier.

Kolkata (West Bengal): Keeping in lines with the global parameters, the Kolkata Tramways is very soon going to come up with colour-coded maps. This will aid the passengers to identify the routes along with the areas that fall under each line. The project is due to be launched in February.

Various initiatives have been taken by The West Bengal Transport Corporation (WBTC) to once again popularize this age-old heritage transportation medium.

As was informed by the Managing Director of WBTC Rajanvir Singh Kapoor, "This would make travel easy and makes way to a technology solution that will be easy and helpful."

According to the plan initially, six lines have been assigned colours-pink, red, yellow, violet, blue and green.

The pink line (24/29) would run from Tollygunge till Ballygunge Junction. The pink route passes through Tolly Club, Bhawani Cinema, Tollygunge Police Station, Lake Market, Deshapriya Park, Hindustan Park ending at Ballygunge Station near Gariahat Mall.

The Yellow Line (25) - starts from Gariahat and ends at Esplanade. The yellow line starts from the tram world at Gariahat Tram depot. it then passes through Ice Skating Rink, Quest Mall, Nonapukur, Rippon Street, Muslim Institute, Wellington Crossing, Chandni Chowk ending at Esplanade.

The red line (05) - the red striped line starts from Esplanade and passes through Bow Bazar, Calcutta University, College Street, Hati Bagan and ending at Shyambazar.

The violet line takes one through the bylanes of old central Kolkata.

The green line (11) starts from Howarh Bridgevand passes through Chitpur, Central Avenue, Vidyasagar College, Scottish College, Hati Bagan ending at Shyambazar. The green line is the first half of the violet line and the second half of the red line.

Once route number 36 is restored, the blue line would start at Esplanade and pass through Mayo Road, Victoria, Fort William, Race Course, Fancy Market ending up at Khidderpore.

WBTC Chairman Rachpal Singh said that, "WBTC is trying to revive the trams in Kolkata. Consequent to the colour-coded lines, high-quality maps are being put in all tramcars to help the commuters as well as visitors to the city. Such pocket tram route maps would be given complimentary to all passengers who buy tram pass."

International travel counterparts like London Tube and Toronto tramways have such colour-coded route maps.