It was launched with much fanfare but is now dying a slow death. Delhi Tourism’s ‘Hop On Hop Off’ (HOHO) tourist bus facility — rolled out just ahead of Commonwealth Games — gets not more than 100-odd passengers on any working day. 

On weekends, the number barely touches 175. While HOHO buses are extremely popular in cities such as London, Paris, Rome, New York, Sydney and Singapore, the purple-coloured low-floor air-conditioned buses running on the Delhi streets are almost empty. 

“We did a survey which says that tourists are not aware about the service. There is absolutely no publicity,” said an official of the company running the service. The service is operated by a private operator — a joint venture of Prasanna Purple Mobility Solutions and Urban Mass Transit Company — for the tourism department. The operator says it was the responsibility of the tourism department to publicise the facility, which it failed to discharge.

Unlike international cities where information about HOHO services is available at every possible location that tourists visit, Delhi’s HOHO suffers due to lack of publicity. There is no information office, kiosk, billboard or even a banner about HOHO at Delhi’s international airport, railway stations, bus terminals and Metro stations. The lone information office at the arrival terminal at domestic airport, however, provides information about ‘Dilli Darshan’ buses (another tourist bus service) as per a report in HT by Atul Mathur.

“It seems they (tourism department) do not have any sense of ownership for this service. We may be operating HOHO service but it is Delhi government’s project,” said an official of the operating company. 

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