Will Ply Between Gandhinagar, Chandkheda Ahmedabad: If you were a child in the early 1990s in a quieter Ahmedabad, you may remember going to school in double decker buses, with everyone racing to grab the best seat in the front of the upper deck. As a child this seat used to be the precious. Well, sixteen years later here is a chance to relive that moment as VITCOS-the private bus service in Gandhinagar plans to introduce the first double decker in March. The route is being finalized at the moment. “There are two routes on which we would ply the double decker, one from GH-3 circle in Gandhinagar to Chandkheda or Chiloda. We have wider and better quality roads up to Chiloda and the bus would not have problems. We plan to run this bus in a 15-minute frequency. The present VITCOS bus frequency in Gandhinagar is 10 minutes,” says chairman of VITCOS Haresh Dhodiya. “There was a time when double decker buses used to run from Lal Darwaza, Paldi and would go up to Gandhinagar. This service was popular amongst government employees and school children. I remember sitting on the front seat of the top deck with my legs stretched out of the front window. This was a luxury. The last time I traveled in a double decker was in 1989 when the AMTS was planning to bring out open roof double decker tourist bus-—very much like London. But a few years later, AMTS chose to close the service,” says an entrepreneur, Dinesh Patadia. The double decker bus to be introduced in Gandhinagar will have a seating capacity of 75 and will run on Euro-IV diesel engine which costs Rs 38 lakh. “This is environmentally safe and has less emission,” claims Dhodhiya. Apart from Gandhinagar, VITCOS has already introduced the service in Bhavnagar in November last year. Dodiya claims the idea behind introducing double decker buses came to him after commuters in Gandhinagar in a random survey expressed their willingness to travel in them if these were introduced. “Public transport becomes mundane after sometime as it becomes part of a person’s routine. We thought of packing in some excitement about traveling in public transport and hence decided to run double deckers,” says Dodiya.