[venki.bala]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

travelled via APSRTC garuda plus (Mercedes Benz Double axle) semi sleeper on a round trip to chennai. On both the trips, there were delays, and in the return trip, the bus broke down and we were stuck for several hours in nellore until the bus got repaired. Plus the NVH in the mercedes buses seem to get worse with age. I am NEVER travelling on a benz bus again!

I totally agree with you. the double axle Benz vehicles NVH is worse and also the seats are little smaller. The normal Garuda seems to bemuch better. Did you travel from Hyd to chennai? I guess all the buses are running late in this route because of road conditions between Macherla and Ongole.

[greenhorn]

yes, I meant to say round trip to hyd. Went chennai-hyd and back. Had to take a leave because the bus reached chennai at around 1:30 instead of 9:30 (the ticket claimed 8:00), and we were totally worn out from being stranded without AC in the early morning

[sandeep959]

Hii.. I'm planning to travel from Chennai to Thrissur on 18th. I'll reach Chennai Airport around 8pm. When I checked RedBus, I found a Kallada starting at 10pm wid Boarding at Tambaram at 1050pm.

Its a Van drop to Shakthan stand at 830am. How reliable is this service? Any reviews?? Binaiks or anyone? Of course, I will post my review after using the service..

[coriollis]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

Plus the NVH in the Mercedes buses seem to get worse with age. traveling on

I regularly travel between Pune and Nagpur by Prasanna- Purple Mercedes Triaxle bus. Bus is more than two years old and has couple of lakh kms on the odometer.
I have never ever encountered NVH problems in my rides so far. In fact the rides have been very smooth and pleasant enough.
May be this attributed towards excellent maintenance and crew behavior.
Only grudge I have is about the silly placement of AC vents.
Cheers,
Abhijeet

[binaiks]

Originally Posted by sandeep959

Hii.. I'm planning to travel from Chennai to Thrissur on 18th. I'll reach Chennai Airport around 8pm. When I checked RedBus, I found a Kallada starting at 10pm wid Boarding at Tambaram at 1050pm.

Its a Van drop to Shakthan stand at 830am. How reliable is this service? Any reviews?? Binaiks or anyone? Of course, I will post my review after using the service..

It is a new service - launched less than a month ago. So haven't heard of any reviews till date. But, please take that 8.30AM arrival with lots of salt - since there are chances for the bus to get delayed further, since it would encounter morning peak time traffic as it enters Kerala.

Reliability wise- Kallada is fairly good. They do have incidences of breakdowns recently, but I would still rate them a good operator. This being a new service, you could expect to get of their new buses.

[TKMCE]

Kallada between Chennai and Ernakulam seems to be an improved operation nowadays especially the via Pondicherry service.

My daughter travellled some time back between Chennai and Aluva. Since she had to come from OMR, shec shose the via Pondicherry service as she had to board/alight at Thiruvanmiyur.

Due to an earlier good experience with Parveen, she booked Parveen Merc Multi Axle with a scheduled pickup at 6.30 from Thiruvanmiyur. Bus reached around 8 PM istead , while the Kallada service with the same timings reached before 7 PM. And Parveen takes the "Kuthiran" ghats (hope I got the spelling right!) route and because there was abreak down by another vehicle in the ghats, got delayed even further and reached Aluva around 9.30 AM. Kallada usually I inderstand takes the Ottapalam Shornur route and would have reached much earlier.

Return she took Kallada as Parveen was sold out on a Sunday evening.
Bus reached Aluva at 4.45 PM(scheduled 4.30PM ) and reached Thiruvanmiyur at 5.30 AM despite going to Trichur town. To be fair Parveen also normally reaches around 6 AM at Thiruvanmiyur

However when things go wrong as it did for my daughter , I still believe Parveen to be efficient.


Here is how things went wrong for us

a My daughter picked up the wrong bag from the luggage compartment when she got down at Aluva (despite a tag..but it was raining and the tage numbers were similar ..ending with 87 instead of 78).The bags were like identical twins - same make, same colour etc...

b She reaches home 20 min after getting down and realises her mistake.. That too after opening her "bag" with her her key. Among other stuff inside found some books wth the owners (hopefully) name inside.

c Called up Parveen booking office in Adayar where she booked the ticket.... Very professional.....they confirmed there was a passenger with the same name as in the books, gave her seat no (she was luvkily booked ot Ernakulam) and mobile contact no in their computer (which was correct) and also the drivers mobile number.

d Contacted the owner of the bag as well as the crew and at the next alighting point they checked and confirmed the original bag is still there.

e The crew (as well as the other passenger) waited till we reached back with the bag at the GCDA complex in Kadavantra which is the parking area of the bus and the last stop. It was a huge releief for us since the bag had all my daughters certificates .

Full marks especially to the Parveen crew and especially the Parveen Adayar booking office who understood the gravity of the situation and responded promptly with the imformation when asked.

I doubt whether Kallada with all these sub agent ticketing would have been anywhere near efficient. Buth that aside they seem to be keeping to their timings on the Kerala Chennai route.

[mash]

Originally Posted by AlphaKilo

Why not try the KaSRTC Club class?
Route info:dep.Time, fare, starting point, via, destination total duration
13:00 1240 KEMPEGOWDA BS [MAJESTIC] KLP POONA [Entertainment TV] SHIRDI 18:50

Now KaSRTC has two Airavata Club Class services to Shirdi
Bangalore departure time 13:00 and 14:30 hours, 13:00 hours bus has Live TV

[ramzsys]

Booked a ticket in Kallada travels for today afternoon from Bangalore to Coimbatore.

The PNR says Mumbai-Trivandrum, connection from Bangalore(did not realize this when booking). Now, will there be delays in the arrival?

[TKMCE]

Should not be a problem for Bangalore Coimbatore as this is a Bangalore Coimbatore Trivandrum service with (I am guessing here) quite a few bookings on Coimbatore Trivandrum as well.

Not too many people will travel Mumbai Trivandrum and there are other options available for the Mumbai originating passengers on other Kallada services departing later. So you bus should not be held up . But avoid booking this on Fridays as they may hold the bus since other options would be full.

[TKMCE]

On the topic of connecting service SRS is offering Ahmedabad to Trivandrum via Bangalore at 3300 Rs.

On a personal note I am very happy to see this. Back in the late 1980s/early 1990s I used to do Trivandrum Ernakulam Bangalore Pune. From Ernakulam to Pune/umbai was on Sharma Transport while the first leg was on KeSRTC. Ofcourse the entire run was on Non AC coaches.

The credit for connection bus services in south actually go to Sharma Transports. They had a "guaranteed connection" service to Mumbai from Kochi . If the Kochi service gets delayed, the Mumbai service waits.

[binaiks]

Originally Posted by ramzsys

Booked a ticket in Kallada travels for today afternoon from Bangalore to Coimbatore.

The PNR says Mumbai-Trivandrum, connection from Bangalore(did not realize this when booking). Now, will there be delays in the arrival?

Nothing to worry. The passengers from Mumbai need to change buses at Bangalore, and they are sent in the 1330hrs BLR-TVM B9R. So you would not face excessive delays since the Mumbai-Bangalore bus comes fairly on time.

I know this information is a bit delayed since you would already be in the bus. BTW, please do confirm if my information is correct or if they have changed things recently.

[ramzsys]

Originally Posted by binaiks

do confirm if my information is correct or if they have changed things recently.

It was for a relative. The bus came by around 2.30 pm- KA registered, orange coloured. It got near 75% occupancy at madiwala itself and. ticket checking done fully so i guess you are right.

[Ashley2]

Originally Posted by TheARUN

Probably the last example of the LEXIA AERO DYNA..

Images are not visible..

[dhandapanik]

Yet another great customer service from KPN.
My friend booked a ticket in KPN Multi Axle Volvo from Dindigul (Bye pass) to Bangalore. This bus actually starts from Madurai and it arrived at dindigul byepass by 11.30 PM or so.

There were around 15+ passengers waiting in the same area for their Chennai AC Sleeper. One of their Sleepers bound to Chennai got broke down and people in the bus were accommodated in a different bus. But they didn't care about passengers who are supposed to board at Dindigul.

Chennai passengers blocked the Bangalore bound multi axle and they didnt allowed the bus to start till 2 AM. Meanwhile they called to KPN HO and no one is ready to respond. Finally one person asked them to make some alternate arrangements on their own. Who is there to take them to Chennai at 2.00 AM? Then they called to local police. Police officials came there and called to same KPN HO. Again same answer. Finally Police officials talked to the people and asked the driver to drop them in trichy. Chennai passengers were dropped in Trichy and then the bus proceeded to Bangalore. Driver did a fairly good job and dropped the Chennai passengers in Trichy and reached Salem by 6.00 AM.

Adding to the above, Already there was a problem in Bangalore bound Multi Axle. There were two multi axle night services in Madurai-Bangalore route. They didn't have enough crowd, they cancelled one service and accommodated all passengers in one bus. Now one service is totally cancelled.

Finally my friend was dropped in Dairy Circle by 10.30 AM. Better avoid taking these useless guys!

[hdnivara]

Originally Posted by dhandapanik

Yet another great customer service from KPN.
Better avoid taking these useless guys!

Very true indeed. Couple of weeks before I was left to take the non-AC semi sleeper (2+1) from Madurai to Bangalore due to last minute planning. It was raining for most of the trip and I'd to adjust with the dripping window.
No crew in the bus. Driver couldn't care any less about this issue. Just pathetic.

Of course, they have the largest fleet and you can be almost certain that you'll get a ticket; but, that doesn't mean that you treat your customers in such a bad way.

That was my first time in KPN, well, it will be the last too.