Mobilicity report - session on Bus Priority System

Apologies for delay in logging in this report. Real tight on time due to office work. I will request Naveen and Shaheen to log their individual reports/notes as well, had requested them to take notes during the session. So yeah, here is a quick summary.

The Setup

We started with a short presentation to describe BPS. Idea was to start with a clear statement that text-book BRTS would be the best, but since BRTS carries a baggage of being too sophisticated (width, fully dedicated lanes), on some key corridors that are narrow and have inconsistent width, the journey may have to start with BPS which uses the same basic tenets of BRTS. In the hindsight, we should have spent a bit more time on the presentation to make the point w.r.t to BRTS a bit more clear. I made the mistake of rushing through the presentation so that we could make the most of the time we were getting with the panelists.

Due to some last minute commitments, BBMP, and Traffic Police (Mr Sood) could not attend. But they are in the loop and informed, and will join the follow up sessions. Mr A Ravindra, KSRTC MD Mr Gaurav Gupta, BMTC MD Mr Pasha, Mr Balachandran (BRTS Subject Matter Expert, with experience at Ahmadabad), Mr R K Misra (advisor, GoK) and Prof M N Sreehari sat on the panel.

The session

We spent decent amount of time understanding BPS concept itself. The reference to current BRTS plans (on Outer Ring Road)  was made, and we struggled to say this in the right words

• yes, BRTS on already wide, and well planned Outer Ring Road is nice, and welcome. But there would be practical difficulties in doing BRTS on radial corridors.

Unfortunately, we couldn't state above in a crisp way,  so spent a bit of time debating BSP vs BRTS. Fair enough, the confusion is valid. But after 15-20 minutes, I would like to believe that most folks (attendees and panelists) were clear on the difference, and understood that saying yes for BPS doesn't mean saying no to BRTS.

Mr Balachandran, and Mr R K Misra in particular were very crisp in 1) understanding what BPS would be, and 2) in supporting it as a step in the journey towards BRTS. However, Mr Gaurav Gupta had the very valid point that if BPS is designed like poor man's BRTS, or if you do BPS with BRTS like expectations, you may be doing a dis-service to the concept of Prioritizing Bus Services - Public may be disappointed in the end, and future BRTS plans may see a setback. He mentioned that KSRTC is planning BRTS on four corridors in Mysore (C1, C2, C3, C4).

Mr Pasha mentioned, and Mr Ravindra added that recently, GoK and BBMP have woken up to BRTS, and aggressive plans are in the works to move towards BRTS. The specifics of the plan, or time-lines were not disclosed. But the takeaway was that as long as BPS or similar proposals help towards the goal of getting us to cost-effective BRTS solutions, the governments and public agencies should be game.

Closure, Next steps?

All is well when it ends well. And we did end well, with a crisp and clear next step of producing a concept paper on BPS in three weeks time. CiSTUP and Praja should join hands to produce a concept paper with G1 as sample corridor in 3 weeks from Jan 10, so the deadline is January 31. Clear date, and a clear deliverable. Once we can describe this clear, the same panel (with BBMP, and traffic police as well) will meet again to help refine and push with local and state governments.

This is it, from my side. Errors and omissions are regretted. Others in attendance, please do add or correct via your comments.

cheers,

SB aka Pranav

PS: rushed post, pardon the typos etc.