The New face of NMMT

Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport a.k.a NMMT, is a local Municipal Corporation run Transport Organisation serving passengers commuting in Navi Mumbai and to areas like Thane, Dombivli, Badlapur, Mulund, Panvel and Uran. The organisation began bus services in 1996 with an initial fleet of 25 buses. Today, the organisation operates 39 routes with a fleet of around 285 buses based out of two operational depots. NMMT depots are located at Turbhe (near Vashi) and at Asudgaon (near Panvel).
Older NMMT buses bear the "MH04" registration mark, while the newer ones bear the "MH43" mark. There are around 200 buses bearing the MHO4 mark, while the remaining ones bear MH43 numbers (Numbers: MH43-H-5001 till 5085). All NMMT buses have an Ashok Leyland Chassis. The initial 170 buses have water-cooled Leyland Engines, while the around 30 buses have Hino Bharat-I engines. All the buses bearing the MH43 mark are Hino Bharat-II engine powered.
Asudgaon depot was opened sometime in the middle of 2005. Each depot holds around 140 buses. The area from Airoli to Nerul (West) is served by Turbhe depot, while the areas from Nerul (East) to Panvel is served by Asudgaon depot. The Longest route of the undertaking is from Vashi Railway Station to Badlapur (East) (Route Number: 46; about 44 kilometres).

The above set of buses is of the older fleet of NMMT. This design was kept standard for a pretty long time now.

The above model of buses was introduced by NMMT in October 2005, consequent to their first bus service to Mumbai. NMMT operates one bus service to Mulund (Route number 100, terminating at Gawhanpada in Mulund East). Around 25 such buses were delivered in that set. Around 15 of those buses had bodies built by Auto Body of Pune, and the remaining 10 had bodies by ARCO of Pune. The bodies built by Arco were generally not acceptable to passengers and crew alike for different ergonomic reasons!

Another set of 25 buses were delivered in mid-2006. All these buses were built by Auto Body Pune. Around 5 such buses had a "luxury" type seating. And, around 1 or 2 of them had only one exit door as compared to the usual 2. This was one among them:

Probably after passengers opposed, the single door patter was dropped, and they were back to twin door buses, but with the Luxurious seating. Sometime in August 2007, the chairman of NMMT promised a surprise to be unveiled on August 15, 2007. The surprise was the set of 35 new buses. These buses have a more flashy body, with stylish paint job, huge single piece windshield and more. The body was built by Antony (of Mahape).

One single thing that i did not like about these buses is the windows. The earlier buses had panes which had to be raised. They were more airy. The new ones have panes which are moved forward and back ward. These ones let lesser air inside! The body work was good, and I had the fortune to travel on one yesterday. (The bus in the image is the one in which I traveled.)

Before winding up: The rear view of the bus::

All the best NMMT for their new venture of operating more services to Mumbai...