BMTC - It is all in the numbers

One of the easiest scheduling problems to solve is when time and route are known.  If the time and at least one (pickup or destination) is fixed, then it is even easier to schedule.  If a pickup and drop schedule for 100 people going to an office has to be designed, simply get the pickup points and put it on a map.  If the points are scattered, try to consolidate them in small groups based on the proximity to each other so that the route does not become a zigzag puzzle.    If the company has 5 vehicles with 25 people capacity, you have to create 5 optimal (best route possible in given conditions) routes which will bring the employees to work at a given time and drop them on given time.  This is what routinely done by school/company buses.

When this is implemented, at least 15 to 20 people will not use the company vehicles because of various reasons.  The stop is too far, the bus takes longer than personal vehicle, the schedule is rigid etc.  But, other 80 to 85 people are using the transport religiously.  Now, how do we solve the issue of people not using the bus?  Are we to see if the route can be changed?, or schedule is made flexible to accommodate everybody?     Or we just ignore them?.   It is all in the numbers.

If 80 percent of the people are happy with the service, then, don’t disturb that schedule.  But, it is not wise to ignore the other 20 percent also.  It is possible to carefully evaluate the problems of the other 20 percent and solve it.  For example providing the last mile connectivity and optimizing the routes etc.  This may bring another 10 percent people to company vehicle.

Now how does it apply to public transport? If 70% to 80 % of the travel is for work purpose, and if there is a fixed schedule for this large population, it is prudent to concentrate on this fixed schedule commuters and provide reliable service to them.  Other 20 to 30%, who do not fit the bill, may use personal vehicle or some other solution can be found.  But, the concentration of mass transport should be for this large population.  Now question arises, how to identify the time, pickup and destination points? The answer is, simply ask them.  Is it that simple? Yes.  You see, for a database system, 5,000,000 records is chump change.   A massive campaign can be done to collect that data, plotting this on the map, consolidate it zone-wise so that it gives fixed schedule transport requirement.   

Next step would be to find out if the BMTC has capacity to cater to this population.  If not, it is possible to use the spare capacity of company/private buses (there are 6000+ BMTC buses and 91,000 private buses in Bangalore).   Ok, is it too big a task to accomplish? Then start with IT corridors (there are only three major ones) and IT/BPO crowd which goes there about 4 to 5 lakhs in which 50 to 60% already use company transport.