The need for BRTS

The following is the full text of the comments under 'guest column' on page 2 of TOI dt 25th March, '08. Muralidhar Rao Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) when operated with high capacity buses gets to be called High Capacity Bus System (HCBS). Curitiba in Brazil supposedly pioneered this model, following the 'success' of which quite a few other cities across the world have adopted it. In India, a team of technocrats from IIT, Delhi have been advocating this model from long, and as a result, the city of New Delhi has just about launched this scheme along one route, with a few more set to follow soon. The Delhi experiment has been receiving a lot of flak in the local media, which the supporters of the model would like to label as the propaganda by METRO/ MONO - rail, and automobile lobbies. Now, whether BRTS or HCBS, both call for dedicated lanes in the centre of a given road. Allowing for 20 + 20 ft for the dedicated lanes on either side of a 10 ft wide median to accommodate the bus stops, it will leave just 50 ft for everything else on a 100 ft (between the outer edges of the drains on either side) road, like the one in Indiranagar. Thus, after providing for 20 ft lanes on either side for the general traffic, which by themselves are going to be terribly crammed, you will be left with a balance of 5 ft on either edges for drains, foot-paths, utility lines, etc. Plainly, that will mean the end of the majestic trees along this road. The question further is how many roads do you have of this width in Bangalore? Now, going by plain logic, supposing in any given route direction, BMTC is operating at a frequency of a bus every 3 minutes, and the buses are moving at an average speed of 10 kmph, there will be a gap of 500 M between any two buses. As such, if a lane is dedicated exclusively for the buses, it will then push out 100 other vehicles from this 500 M stretch (making for 200 vehicles per km), assuming an average vehicle length of 5M, and near bumper-to-bumper traffic conditions. This is total under utilisation of high demand city road space. If the cost of this much of land is factored into the project costing, particularly in cities like Bangalore, then the differential between the METRO-rail and the HCBS will narrow considerably. The above apart, the access structures to the bus stops on the central median, can be fairly complicated and costly, particularly if you are following the Curitiba model. Also, while getting the traffic to move smoothly along straight road stretches is generally not a serious issue, the challenge is in getting them to negotiate the junctions smoothly. In this, the BRTS, for all its engineering, fails to provide satisfactory solutions. There is a telling picture of a stretch of road in some city, which has adopted the model, showing an empty stretch of over 100M behind a bus on a dedicated lane, even as the adjoining lane (in the same direction) is totally cluttered with vehicles of all kinds, particularly two-wheelers. Very clearly, even with having introduced the HCBS on dedicated lanes, it has not caused citizens to switch from the use of their two-wheelers, leading to the problems aggravating even further. Thus, while dedicated lanes may be OK on stretches leading to and from bus depots, or on stretches where the frequency is higher than say a bus every 15 seconds, on regular roads, they are totally ill-advised. Rather than dedicated lanes, total ban on private vehicles (meaning - vehicles other than buses, taxi's and auto's) on select stretches, during peak hours, would any day be preferable. All these apart, BRT schemes are invariably envisaged as operations by Companies promoted by Municipalities, with 'artificial monopoly' (as different from natural monopoly situations, like in the case of power distribution) franchises being tendered out for different districts/ routes. In the case of the Indore city set up, for example (a presentation on which was made in Bangalore recently), the Company takes all decisions with regard to routes, fares, types of buses, schedules, etc, with hardly any discretion being left to the service providers. While the revenue generation out of cash sales comes straight into the hands of the individual operators, out of the earnings from sale of monthly passes (which are managed by the Company), a fixed sum of the order of Rs 22,000/- per bus per month is made over to them. If the targets are not achieved, which could very well happen considering the various kinds of forces at play, it will eventually lead to a subsidy regime. Also, with far too many controls and restrictions still in place, I expect, TATA's, TVS's would still want to keep a safe distance, leaving the field to the local mafia chieftains to play ball with the Company authorities, more or less like the PWD operations in most states. All in all, BRTS is not exactly a satisfactory model. In the case of Bangalore, the Bangalore Metropolitan Land Transport Authority (BMLTA) has been instituted. There is a proposal to strengthen and broad-base it. Once that is in done, what Bangalore needs to do is to facilitate the entry of players of the stature of TATA's and TVS's to provide the services in open competition with the BMTC, on a level playing field, with the minimum of restrictions. Public bus transport services today is too vital an infrastructure area not to have the competent services of such players. For more, read http://traffic-transport-...

some very basic questions folks. working on an angle of this problem. will get back. wanted to reserve a place holder. looking at the stats it does appear to me that bmtc is chasing the wrong market. it is concentrating on long haul, which is beyond its capability simply because it is a bus based system. let us say bangalore comes up with the best possible, most efficient bus based mass transit system possible, the question is, will that be sufficient for bangalore? aside, what do you folks think about the latest headline, nay punchline, from ToI's unlock campaign? greater citizen participation? is that the worst cliche or what? are they trying to wash their hands off? and who exactly is this citizen that they are interested in engaging? the real people with real knowledge and ideas or the types who lobbied for that utterly meaningless thing called BETL? in this grand scheme of things does a tireless worker of an KI, a CAF or a swabhimana or that nameless neighborhood organization or that expert professor at the institute or even the rvce even find a place or is it just the fun and the fashionable that are worth a hearing? folks at KI got an IISc prof to analyse the effects of CDp on Bellandur, guess what all these revolutionaries did?

Hi Tarle (if I may call you that!) The above graphs look interesting. But, they are not clear. And, do they pertain to any specific period? Muralidhar Rao

thanks for the update. for archival purposes and completeness i will post this comment under the original prof. badami thread. (that also reminds me need to get to his other article) ps: i am working on better graphs.

BMTC is based on a hub-spoke model with 3 hubs - Majestic, Market and Shivajinagar. This is the age old design which works fine if we have CBD with all offices in central district. It was working fine in earlier days since Government offices were located mostly in and around Majestic area. Now, offices are spread across all over Bangalore. We need a Grid based network. The existing network should not be touched since lot of people are addicted to it and changing it will distract people. Grid based model should be added to the existing hub-spoke model. BMTC recently started the Grid model buses called MBS, but the frequency was very poor with a bus once in 3 hours or so and was not routed properly based on traffic movement.

 

Common ticketing based on transfers is one more necessity to ease the change of Buses which is very much necessary to reduce the fares and distract Bus Service.

 

We have to identify the main areas of people movement and the patterns in which they move. As per the IT employees traffic, whose cars are mainly causing chaos, it is Bannerghatta Road, Kormangala, Kormangala Inner Ring Road near Dell campus, Domlur to HAL Airport, Whitefield ITPL and last but not the least Electronic City. It is this big network which is causing problems. If we would have had a single CBD concept what blrsri mentioned in his recent post, private vehicles could have been restricted and Public Transport could have been enforced. Providing connectivity to all these areas from all the residential areas is a challenge. One simple remedy is to enforce the companies to provide common transport to its employees from various parts of the city and restrict cars in its campus. This will also ease their maintenance of parking areas which is a challenge for the companies too. The cost of providing transportation to MNCs is peanuts considering their revenue. Already they are cutting cost by outsourcing to India. Quality of buses used by these companies should attract the Car bound Techie by giving more comfort level such as A/C buses with plush seats and reduce the travel time instead of roaming around many areas to cut 2/3 bus routes into 1 bus. Companies in the nearby localities can pool the buses for all its employees which will increase the coverage.

 

Before the introduction of Metro and Mono, we can have buses to run on the proposed route with a definite frequency of 3-5 minutes. With this, we get a feel about the people movement on this route and how it works out with other modes of commute.

 

TS, you can add a core route on the proposed Metro/Mono routes to have Buses (This will be until Metro/Mono substitutes). We wll go as per the RITES survey and add more routes. Let us go constructively by giving suggestions, proposing routes, changing bus stand locations, rather than criticizing what BMTC does without our own Solutions or Suggestions for the existing problems. Problems will stay where it is if we just keep criticizing.

 

It is easier to say at the surface level and difficult at ground level to suggest routes, mode of frequency etc..

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