The idea was proposed by a citizens’ community and became a reality through BMTC. An additional 10,000 Bangaloreans hopped on and off buses on ‘Bus Day’, according to one estimate.
Read more on Citizen Matters
In part due to the efforts of these citizens, that the BMTC added about 300 buses to the Electronic city and ITPL (Whitefield) routes for Bus Day. These include AC and non-AC buses (Vajra/Volvo, Tata Marcopolo, Suvarna and others). The buses in these routes went through an additional 1500 trips on February 4th, says Garg. On regular days, 269 ordinary buses ply to and from Electronic city making 2262 trips. 143 Vajra buses run on 1044 trips. To ITPL, on regular days, 140 ordinary buses make 1018 trips and 100 Vajra buses make 784 trips.
P K Garg, Director (Projects), BMTC, says that these buses were taken from their additional fleet of about 600 buses. He says that about 600 crew were on these 300 buses, some working on two shifts and others forgoing their leave. He adds that according to an estimate by the Electronic City Companies Association and Outer Ring Road Companies Association, an additional 10,000 people took the bus on these routes on Bus Day.
Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Praveen Sood says that the BMTC requested the Bangalore Traffic Police to increase its field staff across three routes. An additional 50 to 60 traffic policemen were deployed from other areas, along Trinity circle to ITPL, Marathahalli to Central Silk Board and Central Silk Board to Electronic City. These policemen ensured movement of buses on the left lane, he adds.
Sood says that along these corridors the number of private vehicles "were a shade less". Though he does not have exact figures, Sood says that there was less congestion with 10 to 15 per cent less private vehicles. He also says that bus registration numbers were noted down, if they were seen not stopping at bus stops. "We have passed on these numbers to the BMTC MD".
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Comments
Whats up Manjari
I am not asking that, but a lot of folks did? Whats up, and why missing in action!?
Back to the topic, interesting to see that "10 to 15% less" estimate from traffic polce. We really need to make this a monthly thing, and use the day to market BMTC as well as make them aware of all the things they need to improve on.
cheers,
SB aka Pranav
Lessons learnt
as well as make them aware of all the things they need to improve on.
My question would be, have we proven anything on bus day we didnt know already? There is no point of these one day wonders if BMTC dont implement learnings.
People may put up with things if they know its only for a day. They will be less forgiving if they have to live through it day in & day out.
So the action plan to the lessons learnt is important.
BMTC - Agree with IDS
The bus day event, besides being a publicity campaign for BMTC, must also result in useful lessons for improvement. At the very least, the following need urgent consideration :
1) Route planners need to think hard & come up with solutions for economically covering all parts to spare commuters from long waits as also multiple transfers - a single ticket from any point of origin to any destination demands attention as some have reported excessive costs with transfers.
2) Distribution of information about bus routes & timings is scanty & grossly insufficient.
3) Punctuality & reliability is often suspect - a system must quickly be put in place to ensure transparency on availability of buses at all bus stops with timings & this must be subject to a scrutiny mechanism by users. Thus, a complaint /grievence cell must also be in operation, similar to telephones, etc.
4) The call centre helpline has been a farce so far & needs to be beefed up with resources to attend queries properly. This can only happen if route & timing information is made readily available on PCs.
There is no point in conducting bus days month after month if BMTC does not make serious efforts to address these issues.
On the positive side, there is better awareness amongst the car using public about bus commute options & hopefully, they start demanding better services & push BMTC to improve.
Need to have a Bus Week?
Just a wild thought. Should there be a Bus Week? It takes time for ridership to build up and maybe by Day 5 people actually get to see some benefits? If they could not for some reason take a bus on Day 1 now they have to wait for a month.
IDS - yes "we" "knew" all this. But I think BMTC honestly does not see many things as problems. They think they are doing an excellent job because they make profits. This might help think a bit differently. Rome was not built in a day.
No hard data yet on ticket sales increase on those two routes.
Srivathsa
Drive safe. It is not just the car maker which can recall its product.
Rome construction time
Even if BMTC fixes 1 item from the todo list before each bus day this Rome will get built before the Roman civilization gets wiped out. So what is their todo list looking like? What is the most important in that list that is easy to do and will give most returns? Does route information and timetable sound doable before next month?
Project to improve BMTC's information systems
Via Bus Day, we only got confirmation on the root of the information management problem they have. BMTC's internal systems are not setup to exchange and synchronize information. In the best version of Route schedule excle sheet we got from them, 500C was missing. Its probably their 2nd r 3rd most frequent Vajra route. Moreover, there are multiple sources of information on routes. There are no standards for naming Bus Stands.
A project to improve information flow process inside BMTC will do it. Once information is flowing well inside their system, they would be able to publish sheets listing all routes and frequencies. This always current data can then help anyone buld systems to tracking, bus information system or whatever. We would easily find 30 websites willing to build route finder and search systems using the data feed. We have 4-5 interested persons right here on this website.
So the question now is, how do we help, force or make BMTC fix their internal processes?
Lessons from Bus Day
I hope BMTC would implement at least a few things they learnt on Bus Day.
To follow up on a sustainable manner two things are necessary-
1. Commuter Forums should be formed at every Bus Stand/Station and Depot to consult the commuters at least once a month.
2. It should be made mandatory for all officials (top to bottom) of BMTC to use their own services for official as well as private purposes and report their findings on a daily basis on the problems they themselves and other commuters face and suggest/implement remedial measures.
K.V.Pathy
BMTC's Rome needs redrawing
Please see the new thread - click here.
Marcopolo or Volvo?
BMTC itself may be very much confused with A/C Marcopolo or Volvo? They say Marcopolo is 1/3rd the cost of Volvo and gives better mileage 3.5 kms as against 2 kms of Volvo.
I couldn't get the Marcopolo ride yet but have seen many on the road.
Apart from cost and mileage perspective, my impression was that Marcopolo is more spacious than Volvo. But, never near the power of Volvos. Suspension of Volvo is too good better than best of the cars.
Driver needs to be good and extract the power of Volvo. The way in which it climbs the uphill is commendable. I recently went to Chamundi hills in Mysore by Volvo just to experience it. I took from the foot hills near Siddhartha Layout. Bus climbed the hills in flat 10 minutes overtaking many cars and bikes. There is non-AC marcopolo too to Chamundi hill, it was struggling as usual to climb the uphill.
Yesterday I took a 201R volvo to Silkboard and the driver was not going even past 40 kph when there was literrally no traffic. Felt he is unnecessarily wasting the power and time as well.
If the traffic is too high and distances are smaller like Majestic to nearby areas, Marcopolo is the right choice, but longer distances like ITPL to Vijaynagar, where buses can go as high as 70-80 kph, Volvo would be good choice.