Skip to Content

800 out of 4000 BMTC buses have bilingual destination boards

up
336 users have liked.
BusPublic Transport

Only 800 BMTC buses have bilingual destination boards, while the remaining 4000-odd regular buses have Kannada only boards. It is the top political leadership that appears to be standing in the way.

A post has been put regarding the same on Citizen matters:
http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/1377-bmtc-buses-signboards-bilingual-bengaluru

According to the post Karnataka Transport Minister R Ashok, in a telephone interview to Citizen Matters, says that “ordinary buses (which have painted destination boards only in Kannada) are used only by Kannada people”.

Says H V Anantha Subbarao, General Secretary of the federation, “We have pointed to the concerned authorities. See, ultimately it's for the public.”  KSRTC Staff and Workers Federation is the state-level union for employees of KSRTC, BMTC and state-owned transport corporations elsewhere in Karnataka.

 

Comments

s_yajaman's picture

Thanks Manjari

up
166 users have liked.

Thanks a lot for this.   At least 800 buses have them!

Interesting that minister has such important decisions to make!   Interesting also that the unions don't seem averse to having bilingual boards. 

Any idea when the move to Kannda only boards happened?  In the 80s and even 90s there used to be bilingual boards for at least blackboard buses.  Did this happen with BTS becoming BMTC?  I was probably not in Bangalore then.

My own problem is not being fluent with the Kannada numerals for some reason.  The destination signs are fine with me - I can read them.  And frankly I know most of the routes having used them for so long :). 

Regardless - the boards need to be bigger so that people can read them from afar and they need to be the same all round the buses.

Maybe some of us can print a bus route guide book and have it published!

Srivathsa

 

 

Drive safe.  It is not just the car maker which can recall its product.

tsubba's picture

agree

up
176 users have liked.

i guess i agree. we have said this before too. bus signs, vehicle number plates are not the place to sestablish primacy of kannada in karnataka. bus signs should be bi-lingual and vehicle plates should be in english letters.

sri. i too have observed that signboards are very small and can barely fit the necessary information even in one language forget two. so that problem no. 1. small size of display .

just an example: http://www.flickr.com/pho...

another thing, this might look trivial but fonts. when you have to look at things from far, you can only grasp very large scale features and care must be taken that the large scale features dont get masked by unnecessary details.  most hand painted signs have lots of squiggly and squirrlies, which sometimes mask details. i have seen this in practice. cant give you a concrete example right now.

but basically lines must be straight, curves smooth and standard and so on. like helevetica font. you can blow it up or shrink it without loosing information. which is not possible with other stylized fonts.  hand painted signs are a job for somebody i suppose.  but perhaps he can diverse into printing standadized boards using templates? just like they do in publishing?

for a group that boasts multi crore profits, i suppose investing in getting the most basic information right should not be a problem.

narayana would know more.

Sunil Kumar's picture

Cosmopolitan City

up
176 users have liked.

Bangalore is loved across every other city for its hospitality & kindness. Anyone who is a stranger coming into Bangalore asks for a location in any language he is guided very well in his language by the people, Auto Driver & BMTC Staff most often. But we put them to hardship by only writing the Bus Boards in Kannada. The BMTC staff should understand we are a Cosmopolitan City & they have cater to a lot of outsiders in our City. The only best way to guide on the Bus is to have the boards in English & Kannada Both. If you had notices the MBS Routes(Dark Blue Buses) which where plying on some routes had the source & Destination printed on top of the buses in BOLD letters both in English & Kannada. Of late the BMTC's fleet of Buses dont have so much space on front of the buses to be printed as the new coach design has got changed. The only best way I can think is to have all the buses with LED display with Source & Destinations which are fixed & not moving.

 

SOURCE                     ROUTE NO.              DESTINATION(English)

SOURCE                                                          DESTINATION(Kannada)

BMTC of late has couple of buses which does display the route no. Soruce & Destination on top of the steps. The Boarding & Eliting points. This is also very good for passanges who miss to see the bus no. in a crowded bus stop.

The New buses lacks the source & destination space on the back of the bus as only it has a provision for route no. only.

TRust BMTC can take some action & make a common platform for all the buses may it be Normal Routes, Suvarana, Vajra,Big10,Vayu Vajra.BMTC will help its stakeholders with a little comfort.

Sunil Kumar

vaishvittal's picture

Discussion on Citizen Matters

up
192 users have liked.

You can also read the discussion that is on here http://bangalore.citizenm...

Please do leave your comments on the same.

- Vaishnavi Vittal

www.citizenmatters.in

 

murali772's picture

pandering to chauvinistic forces

up
168 users have liked.

For their part, BMTC drivers and conductors, who really ply the system and meet commuters every day, feel that it would be good to have bilingual boards.

So, even the staff are for it. But, the minister feels compelled to pander to the dictates of the chauvinistic forces, even after his leader has effectively put them in their place - check this.

However, even while ruled by such dictats, the staff (drivers and conductors) could certainly be more customer-friendly than they presently are - check this.

It's the whole culture, I guess. And, the only effective way to change that is yes - competition.  
 

Muralidhar Rao
pathykv's picture

BMTC destination boards

up
173 users have liked.

It is the 'take it or leave it' attitude of the powers that be which is causing the havoc.

What objection can be there to rewrite the existing boards with larger numbers and the destination on either side in Kannada & English?

Surely it will cost only a pittance compared to the huge losses being incurred on high-end buses.

We should have an early meeting with BMTC to press our views. Will Rithesh/Manjari please try?

K.V.Pathy

sarvagna's picture

Wait

up
165 users have liked.

Hindi is the most speaken langauge in India than english.Then lets have it in Hindi.

But telugu and tamil are second most speaken langauges in bangalore. So lets have it in telugu and tamil also.

This way  we will end up in another big issue. Lets leave as it is. people who have come for short trip will ask localites for help.

People who are here for long time who don't care to take trobubles in understanding local language will anyhow crib and look for other easier ways to handle it.

As easy as it is. who cares to be a vishwa manava when it has least relevance.

 

 


silkboard's picture

dont overthink please

up
171 users have liked.

Sarvagna sir - I appreciate your tone - "People who are here for long time who don't care to take trobubles in understanding local language will anyhow crib".

See - I am with you on this problem statement. There needs to be some soft-enforced way of making long term residents of the city learn the local language. I think we have all talked this on the other threads (which usually get closed after we lose our way).

But sir, please don't overthink this particular matter, avoiding bilingual sign boards is not the way to deal with the original problem statement (above) - doesn't deserve so much attention. The reality is that local language + english combo is what most are used to in our diverse country.

And BTW - I didn't grow up here. Can speak kannada fair enough, understand really a lot, but not read well yet. A lot what I can read, I picked up from the bilingual signs. The first kannada alphabets I learned were na ga ra, guess where, from the bilingual signs at various places (BTS buses as well) for Jaya na ga ra and J P na ga ra etc.

Naveen's picture

Broader outlook needed

up
174 users have liked.

Hi All,

As I mentioned previously, buses, be they public or private, become easy targets & are sitting ducks whenever there are disturbances of any kind. It is for this reason that buses display boards in the local language, apart from the larger number of people that can obviously read & understand the local language, be they in Karnatake, Maharashtra, Bengal, or any other state for that matter. Likewise, shops & commercial establishments are compelled to display boards in the local language.

It is no doubt desirable that buses all over the country display boards in dual languages, but this has to be tackled by the central govt on a much broader scale, similar to the regn nos. issue.

In Mumbai, buses display only Marathi boards, in Bengal - only Bengali boards, in Gujarat - only Gujarati boards, etc. but no one on this forum brings this up. However, demands are made for dual languages on BMTC bus boards without ever pondering as to why boards are in Kannada in Karnataka. At least BMTC is displaying dual language boards on some 800 buses, unlike say, BEST in Mumbai & other cities.

In the five years that I spent in Mumbai, I had managed easily without knowing Marathi numerals nor the script (I still do not know). Many outsiders in Mumbai do the same, even today. Even when using BMTC buses, I manage by asking other commuters or the conductor since I find it better than to make the effort to memorize bus nos & routes. I don't see why this can be so difficult to other users.

Each state is sensitive to it's own identity & language - I think we should understand & respect this too & not see it as an obstacle to preferred conveniences. A statement in citizen matters that bus staff also wish this does not necessarily mean that it is indeed true.  Who knows - a vote amongst all bus staff might establish otherwise.

sanjayv's picture

Broader outlook needed - exactly

up
173 users have liked.

 Naveen - while I agree with you that many states have local language only boards, that is no justification for saying that bilingual boards should not be there in Bangalore.  What is the logic in that?  I have had to learn the Bangalore bus system the hard way... asking people at bus stop, staff in the bus etc. and sometimes getting into the wrong bus and ending up in "new" places.  

We are only talking of bilingual boards - Kannada AND English.  Not converting the whole thing to English. Why should anybody complain about that.? Folks need to keep in mind... learning to read  and write is a challenge as compared to speaking.  For me, that is what takes the maximum amount of time Speak<Read<Write.  Whatever Kannada alphabets I recognize has been learnt  by looking at bilingual boards - like SB so astutely pointed out.

If you ask me, if BMTC were to convert all boards to bilingual boards with nice large clean font and well lit, overnight... I bet you nobody would complain.  It is only when we get into all kinds of detailed discussion about this that we get a mountain out of a mole hill.

 

 

Naveen's picture

A Pan India Issue

up
166 users have liked.

 

Sanjay - I think people should be demanding bilingual boards on buses all around the country as I pointed out. If they single out BMTC only for this while ignoring the rest of the country, I feel they are  looking at their own individual preferences & needs whilst ignoring the other ground realities & sentiments that exist in each city /state within the country.

Why is it that you feel that only BMTC needs to display it bilingually & do not give a thought about what exists elsewhere in other cities or states ?

Unless you address this question satisfactorily, BMTC may continue to do things as suits them best & not care much for your thoughts either since your arguments are weak in the first place.

 

tsubba's picture

bus signs - only destination

up
170 users have liked.

one way to make space is to only have destination name on the board. bcoz it does not matter where the bus came from what matters is where it is going.

for example:

numbers in english letters. (everybody who can read knows how to identify currency). kannada in bigger font because it takes more space. english in smaller size, yet visible and legible.

reflective material for background (silver)

clean cut / stencilized signs in black.

blue/white, green/white etc etc also ok.

pathykv's picture

Destination Boards

up
164 users have liked.

The sample shown is nice. The board can be as large as possible.

BMTC need not follow the wrong practices of other states, but set an example. Of course they can try to see how other states are able to charge half the fares and run efficient transport competing with private operators.

K.V.Pathy

sanjayv's picture

Bilingual boards - PAN India Issue

up
161 users have liked.

 Agreed that the issue is applicable all over the country.  Being residents of Bangalore, we can only demand bilingual boards here, right? Tomorrow, if I move to another city with the same issue, will certainly make the same demand there.

Sunil Kumar's picture

Bilingual should be a Most

up
171 users have liked.

If you move to a new City for say a project for 3 months or even 3 days you dont expect your self to learn to read & write the local language. So the only best way is to have the boards in English & also local language. Please take note Bangalore has so much floating crowd every day & this makes it even more reason to then to have the boards in English. We cant influence other state or the central Govt. The best we can do is to influence our state to take action onthe Bilingual boards. If you notice the disuccsion started that we have 800 buses boards in English. If the state had to decide then it could be Zero right why a partial No. I guess the 800 will account to the Vayu Vajra , Vajra  , Few Puspaks , Few Big 10s & Few Suvara Buses as the are new coaches & have the Facility to display in Both the Languages. You not extended the same to all the buses. I am born & educated from Bangalore but my Kannada touch has gone. Today when I stand is a bus stand I now very few buses which are a common route but thanks to BMTC adding new new routes by the time I read the bus would have left for all that you know it would have carried me to my destination. We dont need to follow any states but we can set examples or learn from other states also. The MTC in chennai has bus routes both in English & Tamil so does Hyderabad.

We trying to say BMTC caters to the masses who can be a Bangalorean or an outsider. They live in our city the minimun we can do is to give a small hand holding in English for them during travel inside our city. We are making the communter indepentent of himself by not asking anyone "Does this bus go to this place" He just reads & goes. Because by the time he gets a response the bus could have passed the stop.

Request if we can escalte the issue to BMTC to have boards in Bilingual please.

Sunil Kumar

swamy's picture

Sunil sir and 'kannada touch'

up
167 users have liked.

Sunil Saar - onde question. You said -

"I am born & educated from Bangalore but my Kannada touch has gone"

seri. I am also for bilingual sign boards, our ooru is a different place now. Sanjayv SB etc moved here, so have speaking/listening ability but no reading writing so far. okay pa.

But why and how people who are born and educated here can not have the 'kannada touch'.

Please don't take it personally Sunil sir, but will everyone agree that at least this should never happen.

Sunil Kumar's picture

Sunil sir and 'kannada touch' Taken Note

up
180 users have liked.

Swamy,

No Worries Point taken. I speak everyday Kannada at office only,watch Kannada news Tv 9 just Bangalore also. But my reading touch has gone. Hence I pointed out the Biligual board request.

 

Sunil Kumar

tsubba's picture

logistics

up
173 users have liked.

one issue with destination only signboards is that every time the bus changes directions, the board must be changed.

either the conductor or the driver have to physically and personally change the board.

this repetitive job must some how be made easy. so some reason i have not seen boards being changed instantaneously. it takes a few minutes to get the right board and the right alignment. this can be nagging.

i think simplest solution would be to have a board printed on both sides(335 HAL on one side, 335H kadugodi on other), and mounted at the deck level on the windshield.

but the best location for the boards is still on the top. only changing signs and cleaning is a problem. any mechanical engineers who can think of some simple, robust, mechanisms that can help change the signs?

also,as far as possible, the boards should be flush with  the glass. especially when mounted on the top. the glass tends to be dusty, and farther behind the board is from the glass more difficult it is to read the board.

anybody know why the boards are in the condition they are?

 

pathykv's picture

Destination boards

up
176 users have liked.

Dear Mr. Subbabhatta,

Not a high mech. engg. skill is needed (I am one by chance!).

The board can be easily rotated  on its horizontal axis if it is fitted with pinning on two sides.

K.V.Pathy.

tsubba's picture

boards

up
162 users have liked.

yes sir.  do you think there is enough clearance for that? need slightly more than height of the board. or do you think it is possible use some simple extension mechanism? that can pull it out of the chamber?

idontspam's picture

Use LED

up
174 users have liked.

LED boards are not very expensive and all sides can be centrally controlled, no moving parts, powered by bus battery, error free.

tsubba's picture

LEDs

up
169 users have liked.

ids raayre,

morning only seeing well and in night going and falling in it? knowing all that you know, what are the chances they are going to do it? pojjibility and feajibility two different things, i dont have to tell you.

any case, in terms of form, i am not really happy with LED boards. they dont have the resolution - yet. ofcourse they are oozing with functionality, but even there, it seems like a bit of a overkill of a solution for the problem. lets us just say it is not an elegant solution. it will work. but it does not hit the spot.

what happens is, they to scroll and roll text. idyalla anta they try to mimic dasara stalls in mysore. bit of an exaggeration. what happens is when it starts rolling like that, many times i have to wait for the relevant information to pop up.

aside a few months i saw something in HD. i was disoriented. agreed i watch very little tv, but HD has more resolution than real life. which is very very disorienting. i actually got severe headache.

s_yajaman's picture

@Naveen - not justified - deleted in public interest :)

up
149 users have liked.

Deleted in public interest.

Srivathsa

Drive safe.  It is not just the car maker which can recall its product.

s_yajaman's picture

Sorry sir tarle

up
177 users have liked, including you.

But Naveen's post got my goat a bit.  I tried hard to stick to the straight and narrow, but this is a bit like a red flag to a bull

I will request a delete on my post.

Srivathsa

 

Drive safe.  It is not just the car maker which can recall its product.

idontspam's picture

Another shot

up
164 users have liked.

any case, in terms of form, i am not really happy with LED boards

Meh!

 

 

nijavaada's picture

my way of looking at it

up
159 users have liked.

Guys,

Its been quite a lengthy discussion goin on here about boards & buses. And my! Is this the most popular subject for Praja to discuss or what?! Anyway, nice to see vivid inputs being offered on this thread.

But then, I feel there are some (more) serious things that have been grossly missed out in this discussion until now. And that pertains to a couple of structural and cultural issues.

Structural -

Someone already hinted at this while saying the LED boards are not the true solution because the text keeps scrolling, and perhaps by the time you happen to read the destination name (in your preferred language!), the bus would have passed-by, or chances are, you board it and thats not the bus you needed! So do we get the point? The problem arose because (1) The board had two languages (Yes, all LED boards are bilingual) and (2) way too much text to display all at once.

(Cultural -)

While we're trying to solve this "perceived" problem, these I feel are the two things we need to look at. (Of course, here in I am assuming painted boards are a no-go in future. We need boards that are not at the behest of a painter, true; I agree on that.) The fact that there's way too much text content to be displayed on boards and that leads to scrolling cannot be done away with. Those are names, and names should NOT be modified - unlike in some unfortunate cases where it has already happened. Doddakkanahalli (near Sarjapura road) has been misspelt in several places (in english) as Doddakanneli - while the former has a meaning as well as a historical relevance, the latter is akin to the absurd Seringapatinam Britishers derived from Srirangapattana. So text & its length are really not in our control, neither do we want to coin new short-forms for places unless we can well manage a unique list of acronyms. Such a cultural adverse trace can be averted by employing Kannada script to spell our names.

Now this leads us to think: since this already long text was required to be displayed in two languages, it was designed to be a scrollee. Now this is something that could be looked at.

I agree there are people of all kinds coming into Bangalore, perhaps on a regular basis, if not daily. I seriously think a system as long standing as BMTC doesn't need to equip itself to such a variable entity as a "momentary visitor" to the city. (But amidst such good discussions, any TDH's way of converting this into a discussion about chauvinism or his/her perceived struggle against such chauvinism better not be entertained here.)

Thinking deeper into the problem - if reading Kannada is the main issue then learning to read it is one obvious solution. But if number plates and bus boards are not language flaunting places, neither can these be places from which one can learn Kannada (via  English), right? So either of these arguments has to be dropped if we need a solution here. And to arrive at a solution, we'll HAVE to drop a few outliers in people - a kannadiga who cant read (kannada) is certainly an exception in BLR's population. He should re-pick-up kannada for his own benefit.

So the solution I have is a mixture of structural and cultural. One - BMTC needs to hire some really smart graphics & software engineers (or perhaps fund a student project) and get good Kannada fonts designed for LED display, and perhaps make good bus-stops giving bus-number to route correlations.. and Two - people who have made BLR their settlement (newly or old) - mostly those that matter to BMTC's business (BMTC is not for charity, right?) - must put in sincere efforts to learn to speak/read Kannada. There are plenty of avenues available today if one wanted to do that - paid & free. A good 2-3 hours spent learning/teaching Kannada with people every week is time well invested. Serves your intention to be talking on this forum well. Otherwise, I guess we'd just be re-triggering threads of this kind forever, and ever! Just looking back at how late BMTC board discussions on Praja date back to! And many people on this forum could have definitely learnt to read kannada as fluently as I do!

-Nijavaada
pathykv's picture

Bus destination boards

up
157 users have liked.

I have lived in a number of States and the first thing I do when I go to a new State is to learn their script sufficiently to read the bus destination boards, Thus I learnt Oriya, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam (not to mention English).

But when our States like Karnataka are spreading red carpets to tourists for Dasara , Hampi festival etc. can we ask such tourists to first learn Kannada before booking their tours?

In their own interest all States should use English boards in addition to local languages.

K.V.Pathy

idontspam's picture

Scroll is a bad idea

up
173 users have liked.

First off the scroll is a really bad idea. If you want to display the entire route paste the route maps in the bus stop and make it available online and via sms for the route. In which case just the destination along with number is sufficient for a person to indicate if he was standing on the right side of the road, since he can always look at the billboard in the stop for the route map. 

The scroll is no reason to kill LED boards, simple wiring of all 3 boards (front, back & side) to a control panel near the driver will ensure proper and consistent display.

We are the tech capital right. How about sponsored kiosks which can dish out route info in all languages of India. Mobile apps? web enabled phone go to BMTC mobile page on the site or sms route number and language and get the entire route in your fav language. Dont know route number? sms destination and get route numbers. Dont know destination? ummm...

tsubba's picture

nijavaada

up
175 users have liked.

second. and more importantly, there is a need to find short names/ symbols for some of the words that frequently occur. mainly bcoz display sizes are limited.

for example halli, kere, paLya etc etc are very common. we need a nice and cool was to shorten them. how about .ha for haLLi? doDakka .ha = doDakkanahaLLi. kaLasipaaLya = kaLasi .pa, lingaambudikere = lingaambudi . ke, haesar .gha

this is first level. then next level, take care of extra vottus etc that come from sandhis.  and so on. then another level of contextual reduction, like lingaambudikere = lingaam' .ke

 

nijavaada's picture

Short forms

up
176 users have liked.

@Subbabhatta,

Well, frankly, I think you've thought it out pretty well. And I must admit your thinking is on the right line when it comes to shrinking names to make them readable. But... but, I am skeptical about such shrinking when it comes to names printed in Kannada.

ಬ್ಯಾಟರಾಯನಪುರ takes the same number of pixels (in width) as ಬ್ಯಾಟರಾಯನ ಪು and in fact the latter form could have aliasing effects with words beside it, leading to added confusion to the observer on road. The same applies to English print as well. Summarily I dont think we save much space at the "first level" you've described.

The "second level" though makes matters a li'l complicated, because whenever such shrinkings are done, the system calls for a standard method of shrinking names, which BTW, becomes a herculean task against its returns! We need to have a methodology to stick to when shrinking names, how many chars to chop, how many syllables to keep to maintain readability, etc. Finally this solution shouldnt make more people ask people on road, or the driver/conductor about the bus' destination and sorts!

Besides, I feel BMTC boards need to get into the commuters' brains. We need three things to be displayed. (1) Route No. (2) Next Stop (3) Final Destination - Most of the people on a bus dont travel all the way until the final stop, they mostly need info about interim stops - which makes the "Next Stop" info vital enough. With all these factors, I think making one language boards is very much a necessity. Look at this for instance in Japan:

-Nijavaada
tsubba's picture

correct size of short forms

up
165 users have liked.

 byaaTaraayanapura = byaaTa' pura = byaaTa .pu

ಬ್ಯಾಟರಾಯನಪುರ, ಬ್ಯಾಟ' ಪುರ, ಬ್ಯಾಟ .ಪು

you are right. the correct scale of short forms will take some effort to figure out. so nobody said this was easy. but unless you consider all this to be trivial you should help with forming some general set of rules and we should test it out on a sample set before we take it to bmtc. so please take a lead. start a thread. standardization of short forms. one of the objectives being reduce pixel count/ or for a given character size reduce word width. one is perhaps how it is done in spoken language chikkakanahaLLi is usually chikkaknalli. my only problem with this is, when writing then all sorts of qualifying strokes come into play and it may be hard to read them from far.

please take lead.

 

nijavaada's picture

tasks

up
177 users have liked.

@subbabhatta,

I for once am not very convinced that name shrinking will help - esp'ly on Bengaluru buses.

But if you have to do trials, coming up with a list of all the official (and unofficial, which need to be official) stops in Bengaluru could be your first task.

The other approach would be if someone here is good at text-graphics, we need a good, unaliasing glyph set (as far as possible straight lines dominated) to re-build the Kannada alphabet to make (1) long-distance reading easier, and (2) fitting long words in less width easier.

-Nijavaada
silkboard's picture

More info at the bus stop

up
178 users have liked.

Look at the real reason the BMTC's LED signs have the full route details scrolling on them - no info at all the bus stop, where commuters wait and have all the time to read things.

More info you have at the bus stop - all routes that go through the bus stop, with frequency and details, less details you need on the LED boards. Number and final destination will be enough. Next stop information is a good idea, but will need some GPS + programming to get it right.

In fact, info on the bus stops can be bilingual, and then - as long as the buses have just the numbers alone, that should suffice.

nijavaada's picture

no harm

up
171 users have liked.

@ silkboard,

I agree info on bus stops could be bilingual, but the same rules apply - the names should not be obscured or altered just because it is difficult to pronounce in the particular person's own language. What has happened to Dose (now widely altered as Dosa) stands a trivial and startling example of how native words could get modified when anglicised, or put to a form to appeal to a wider audience. This needs caution to be exercised - only then bi-lingual signboards  will really serve the purpose, and do no harm at the same time.

For next-stop info, the bus conductor could himself do that. He's already doing that inside the bus. If he does it in a specified way, it could reflect outside as well. But then, if we HAVE to adopt hi-tech, BMTC buses are already GPS tracked, so that is not a tuf target to get at I suppose.

Like I said, unless BMTC goes the true global way, and outsources some such non-core tasks to small companies, or even spawns off student projects, yes, this will be tough.

-Nijavaada
s_yajaman's picture

@Drvk

up
175 users have liked.

To start with could you not write in all caps please?  It is very hard to read.

Second - you ask us to meet up and discuss.  There is fundamentally no difference between discussing face to face and dicussing on this portal.  If you don't like what you see here, you are free not to participate.  It's a free country. 

Third, don't generalize by writing - " U the net savvy man...", etc.  It serves no purpose.  Actually many of us do meet up and you are welcome to join.  Please see the event on sustainable transportation.  You are welcome to contribute. 

BTW - many of us here voted.  Again don't generalize by saying we party, etc.  Many of us don't, many of us do. 

What action do you suggest?

Srivathsa

 

Drive safe.  It is not just the car maker which can recall its product.

drvk@in.com's picture

@srivatsa

up
169 users have liked.

I hate generalisng... and agree that its a bad thing.But pls think really hard n tel me, isnt it true that most ppl who are netsavvy...or let me put it bluntly...ppl who are well to do, i mean..who dont have many probs, dont bother voting!

eg;Mumbai 40%voting v/s rural areas 70%

Im not sure if u agree...but i know it for sure that this is the reason most politicians dont bother about any of the so called well to do population.Again this is a generallisation..but think, where does generalisation spring from..

What i was rying to say in that blog was..either make all cities in india trilingual(which seems very tough) or dont waste time debating..

and by the way..u have cut my freedom of expression by not posting my earlier entry!!

vikram k

drvk@in.com's picture

MORE...

up
166 users have liked.

Ok...now u might think, this guy is talking nonsense..U know what thats exactly what i think of the tons of lines written above!! I have travelled all over the globe and i think that gives me some wider thinking..and if u see most countries in europe only use their own language..everywhere..signboards,buses.ppl from other countries who dont like it, will have to live with it,period!

and thinking of it...HOW MANY PPL IN BLORE CAN READ ENGLISH:10%??

WHY R WE DEBATING BILINGUAL BOARDS FOR that 10% when the remaining 90% cant read anything except kannada/telugu/tamil/hindi etcetc..

DO I HAVE A POINT HERE??

 

vikram k

s_yajaman's picture

@drvk - I did not remove your post

up
189 users have liked.

I did not remove your post.  By the time I responded to it a moderator had removed it (as it was not in line with the guidelines here).  My post looks rather silly now :)

I agree with you that till we start voting in large numbers we don't count.  And if you search the site you will find some efforts there as well.

Why should it be an all or nothing approach - we live here and not in Delhi or Calcutta.  BMTC itself has bilingual electronic boards on its Vajra service.  Also then even the numbers should be in Kannada - why leave that in English? 

Last but not least - I think the local population deserves better than what is being dished out to them as a bus service.  There are no proper bus stops, the blue buses are pretty badly maintained, etc etc.  Don't those things matter as much as the language in which the signboards are written.  Look at a BEST bus (and not the aircon ones) and see the difference for yourself.

Srivathsa

Drive safe.  It is not just the car maker which can recall its product.

s_yajaman's picture

@dvrk - Re:More

up
165 users have liked.

Vikram,

No need to throw your globetrotting antecedents around. 

If we want to debate something and waste our time doing it, our wish - no?  Maybe this is all we want to do.  If it bothers you a lot, too bad.  You are free to use your time browsing sites that don't irritate you or where you find people who agree with all your points of view.

Hope this clarifies.

Srivathsa

 

Drive safe.  It is not just the car maker which can recall its product.

silkboard's picture

talking numbers

up
163 users have liked.

Dear globetrotter,

Let us do some simple vedic mathematics here. Since globe trotters are likely to have the most accurate local numbers, let us take your statement only - , say its true:

HOW MANY PPL IN BLORE CAN READ ENGLISH:10%??

Let us add an assumption that these people can't read Kannada. Okay that would mean 4 lakh commuters (assuming 40 lakh commuters in the city)

How many of these will have cars? Lets say all.

How many of these take the bus? Say less than 10%. 40000.

What things do you need to do to have this number go up from 10% to 50%. From 40000 to 2 lakhs?

Why is this important in the first place. 2 lakhs minus 40000 = 1.6 lakh cars. Thats 1.6 lakh x 50 = 800 lakh sqft of free space on the road. For us to walk, and for us to go faster in all those buses.

But yes, as Srivathsa says, don't think sign boards will be the main thing, but will be one of the things needed to get there. [We on Praja know this. Thats why you have more discussions (and meetings with people as well) on routing reforms, local shuttles, bus shelters etc than signboards.]

Or you can mix it up with the other (relevant, yes - but a separate) issue by proposing a solution where these 2-4 lakh people should be forced to learn kannada to read signboards. This too can be done (read other threads), but not via this signboard talk.

drvk@in.com's picture

Globetrotter!!

up
175 users have liked.
Any why does everyone quote that one word(Globetrotter) that i mentioned in that entire paragraph...Du have any bitterness for ppl who travel a lot. OR du think im being a show off...If u do, pls let me know what makes u think so...Cos i being a reasonably level headed individual(I would like to believe so) made sure i just mentioned this fact to substantiate my claim by quoting whats happening in many(advanced) societies in the world.. And now..Dont start calling me Mr Level headed...

vikram k

summer glau's picture

"Any why does everyone quote

up
196 users have liked.

"Any why does everyone quote that one word(Globetrotter) that i mentioned in that entire paragraph..."

Probably because other people on this forum have seen more places than you  have but do not want to wear their 'globetrotter' identity on their arms..? Just guessing ;)

tsubba's picture

boards

up
161 users have liked.

cross post from churumuri:

me:

ptl et al…

it will be great if you can think about this problem:
http://praja.in/en/blog/manjari/2009/09/23/out-4000-bmtc-buses-800-buses-have-bilingual-destination-boards#comment-17652

briefly. board sizes for buses are small. plus for the same word fidelity (say ability to read words from a given distance) kannada words need larger letter sizes bcoz of strokes and vottus etc etc…

so typically in order to fit byaaTarayanapura’ into a small board size they reduce letter size which makes it illegible.

so need simple and intuitive short forms for place names to be used in bus sign boards. any ideas?

 

PTL:

I am not for further deforming of Kannada names, toponyms or otherwise, but I also know this is impractical. If and when texting becomes standard in Kannada, we will see as many syllables clipped as we see in English.

In any case, unless we are impaired, just how long does it take to read the destination board? What is confusing is not being able to tell which route the bus will take.

me:

ptl annore ., i am not saying short forms to be cool and be in with it. i have very sharaNa reasons for it.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2571/3952284042_130b24d2bd.jpg

i actually tried fitting byaaTaraayanapura in that space with that letter size. not possible.

if you ever get a chance watch a documentary called helevetica. that is the most used ‘font’ in all world. it was designed for a specific utilitarian purpose. you should see the amount of thinking from usability and utility angles that went into designing it. one of the ‘design points’ was that you should be able to scale the letter size and still be legible.

the problem is not just time. for bus signs, especially the way bustops work in KA (multiple buses arrive simultaneously to the same physical location), ability to identify buses from far and early is crucial. people will then organize themselves that much early in preparation, and entry and exit is that much more organized/systematic.

order is created by paying attention to all these little ‘inconsequential’ things. order does not happen by sitting lamenting about how our people are uncontrollable, undisciplined etc etc. and how chinese are so much nicer to control. that is bullshit. anywhere you go around the world, you will see that order exists only where there is a system to enforce it or help establish it. and for that all sort of things need to be done.

anycase back to my original point. completely utilitarian reasons.

dineshpkm's picture

Hosur is an example

up
173 users have liked.

Just cross the border to Hosur. You can find trilingual/tetralingual? markings in  the sides town buses. Awesome thought by the tnstc salem wing to include Tamil, Kannada, telugu in bus signs.

dinesh

hyd

dineshpkm's picture

hosur

up
166 users have liked.

hosur has trilingual bus signs

dinesh

hyd

Praja.in comment guidelines

Posting Guidelines apply for comments as well. No foul language, hate mongering or personal attacks. If criticizing third person or an authority, you must be fact based, as constructive as possible, and use gentle words. Avoid going off-topic no matter how nice your comment is. Moderators reserve the right to either edit or simply delete comments that don't meet these guidelines. If you are nice enough to realize you violated the guidelines, please save Moderators some time by editing and fixing yourself. Thanks!



about seo | blog