India’s State Transport Undertakings are adopting electric buses, GCC wet lease model and digital technologies.
These changes reduce capital costs, shift operational roles to private operators and enhance service monitoring through integrated systems.
They prompt workforce restructuring and necessitate comprehensive digital integration to improve efficiency and accountability.
The public bus transport system forms the backbone of mobility for several cities, catering to the majority of public transport demand. The government's push for electrification in this sector is a strategic imperative to achieve sustainable mobility and reduce pollution, aligning with India's Net Zero targets announced at the 26th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
India’s bus electrification journey began with pilot initiatives supported by the Government of India and incentives provided through schemes and policies. This matured into a mandated nationwide movement for scaling up electric bus mobility.
In the initial deployment phase under the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME)-I scheme, the central government incentivised State Transport Undertakings (STU) to explore two contract models: Net Cost Contract and the Gross Cost Contract (GCC).
Subsequently, the Centre's Department of Heavy Industries mandated the GCC model as the sole eligible framework for subsidy under FAME-II for the induction of electric buses. The preference for the GCC model is driven by strategic considerations: It allows STUs to avoid high capital expenditure, mitigates technological risks such as battery degradation and replacement uncertainty and reduces operational unpredictability.
This policy shift was a noticeable, decisive turn in India's public transport governance, further strengthened by the success of Convergence Energy Services Ltd’s (CESL) tenders, including the Grand Challenge and the National Electric Bus Programme, which account for more than 10,000 buses.
The Indian government plans to introduce over 24,000 e-buses, including 14,028 e-buses through the Electric Drive Revolution in Innovative Vehicle Enhancement (PM E-DRIVE) scheme in nine cities with populations over 4 million (such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad) and 10,000 e-buses through the PM-eBus Sewa scheme in nearly 170 cities with populations less than 4 million.
The mass induction of electric buses mandates a fundamental shift in traditional maintenance, operations and planning, which are significantly different from those applied to Internal Combustion Engine buses. Under the GCC wet lease model, the role of STUs has increasingly focused on contract administration, service quality assurance, revenue risk and performance monitoring against predefined Service Level Agreements (SLA).
The performance-driven nature of the GCC model has compelled STUs to embrace digital technologies as essential tools for oversight and efficiency. Digital systems enable STUs to monitor operator performance, enforce financial compliance, calculate payments and ensure contractual adherence. Recognising this critical role, CESL has mandated the collection and sharing of specific data parameters in its tenders under the PM-eBus Sewa scheme to enhance fleet reliability and ensure regulatory compliance.
The introduction of GCC model and digital technologies in bus operations has substantially transformed the workforce dynamics within STUs. The GCC model, particularly through its wet lease structure, has diminished the operational role of STUs' permanent employed drivers, leading to a surplus workforce.
Consequently, established STUs are undertaking a systematic restructuring of their workforce requirements at electric bus depot operations. The adoption of digital technology is also playing a key role in assessing bus operations and human resource requirements. Depots of STU — focal points for fleet preparation, maintenance and dispatch — have undergone significant functional changes due to the adoption of the GCC model and digital technologies.
The operational responsibilities of bus services within the GCC framework are clearly evident in the functional changes observed throughout various areas of the depot, especially those dealing largely with buses and drivers. These include the schedule section, control room, workshop and general sections.
The schedule section at the depot, for instance, previously managed duty allocation for both buses and crew members (drivers and conductors). It also maintained the Summary Record of Attendance for all. Under the GCC model, this section is limited to conductors, omitting both buses and drivers, whose duties are transferred to the operators.
These functional transitions have impacted workforce dynamics at the case STU depots, compelling the STU to reassess workforce requirements.
Digitalisation efforts, including the Bus Management System (BMS) and real-time Electronic Ticketing Machines (ETM), have substantially improved service monitoring. BMS is central to managing daily fleet movements, tracking individual bus entry and exit times, State of Charge (SoC) levels, charging session details, fault notifications and trip progress in real-time.
This transition from manual logs to automated system tracking enhances transparency and precision in scheduling, routing, and maintenance planning. ETMs at the bus level provide aggregate passenger data, automate fare collection, compilation, and integration with the BMS. The round-the-clock operation of these digital systems enables management to monitor key performance indicators and compliance with SLAs under the GCC model, ensuring contractual transparency and functional accountability.
While STUs are adopting digital technologies to increase the efficiency of bus operational monitoring and to simplify staff tasks, the limited or partial adoption of technology is, in some cases, increasing the workload and staff requirement at the depots. For example, the case STUs introduced ETMs to increase real-time monitoring and accountability but did not fully stop manual ticket selling.
Crucially, the STU failed to develop an integrated single platform to support both ETM and manual ticket stock and conductor locker details. Therefore, STU staff are forced to feed and maintain the waybill transaction details for both ETM and manual ticket stock to review, validate and support decision-making. This duplication of activities leads to both time and resource wastages.
Furthermore, it has been observed that the ETM data was not integrated with the BMS for real-time data updating or the auto-generation of reports for passenger and revenue monitoring.
To fully realise the potential of electrification and digitalisation under the GCC framework, STUs must focus on strong institutional capacity, redefine staff roles and make upskilling mandatory.
They should move beyond mere data collection to fully automate contract management functions (such as payment processing, SLA adherence monitoring) via integrated digital platforms. Supervisors must routinely use system-generated Management Information System reports for decision-making.
Finally, developing or adopting a single, integrated digital platform must be prioritised. This would ensure seamless support to all aspects of operations, including bus monitoring, contract management (such as calculating distance travelled for payment, operator bill processing), real-time SLA monitoring and automated report generation for quick analysis and decision making.