March 4 Bus Day - New shuttles - Bagmane, Indiranagar, Domlur, Koramangala

Good development. Interesting that BMTC is covering multiple job areas (Koramangala, Domlur/EGL, Indiranagar 100 ft road, Old Airport Road, Bagmane Tech PArk) with one service. Sounds like a good optimization of multiple requests. Small local loops are preferred, because then, you don't realy need both clockwise and anti-clockwise services. Small loop size will make sure people don't mind extra looping.

For larger loops like this, you need to be careful - sit in clockwise one, or anti-clockwise?

But then, 10 minute frequency is helpful. Just need to get numbering/naming clear, people will get used to it.

Some questions not clear yet are

• Bus Day only, or longer period trial?
• Commuter Time only (morning, evenings), or Full Day?
• 10 minute frequency for each loop? Again, full day, or morning/evening high frequency, rest of day low?

More important questions, some not in BMTC's control

• Will the Bus go over Domlur flyover? How will people change from Airport Road to this 'shuttle'?
• Will Bagmane Tech Park workers have to walk all the way in from Suranjan Das Road?
• Vajra or Pushpak Bus pass okay to use on these?

I am looking forward for middle circle buses suggested here

. From Hosur Road to OMR shuttle will be covered by this route along with good direct connectivity to few localities too.

Waited at HAl airport signal - 9.10am to 9.25 am, didn't see any thing turning into Suranjan Das road towards Old Madras Road. Perhaps the shuttle service couldn't be started today. Took auto as usual to office.

Did anyone see this shuttle in Koramangala or Indiranagar?

15 Rs Bus ticket till HAL, then Rs 40 on Auto (no meter as always) shared with another rider, so Rs 20. 20 + 15 = Rs 35. 14 Km in car would cost about Rs 55 worth of Petrol. So PT was cheaper, thanks to the shared Auto Ride.

Time wise, the cost was 15 extra minutes, can live with it.

Job Centers like Bagmane and EGL have to be forced to run shuttles till nearest Trunk Route bus stops (should be social responsibilty for Builders and large companies), there is no other sustainable way of making the likes of you and me switch from cars (or bikes).

In return for running shuttles, allow them to do build an extra floor or so.

Or, as you see in the numbers above, just figure a way to allow shared autos (Tata Magic like things?), that too may do it.

 I waited a lot ( nearly 30 minutes) not to find a 500K today at 11:00 AM. Daily there used to be 500K at 11. Felt sad not to be seen on Busday.

Daily there used to be so many buses atleast to go upto Banashankari from Kattriguppe (201 and 501). Today couldn't even find them. Finally had to take an Auto to Banashankari and then a normal Janti till the office (couldn't get a Volvo).

Spirit of last bus day was not present today unfortunately. No one in bus stops to take feedback.

It is high time that all BMTC schedule on Google Transit if the Bus Day has to live uo to its name.

www.google.com/transit

Vinod,

Apart from good publicity and press releases, BMTC needs to establish a relationship with its major stakeholder and the customer, i.e commuters. They can't do things in isolation and expect citizens to support their new plans.

For more public response they need to talk to the public and in turn convey the changes they are ready bring in response to concerns citizens might have. Imagine, BMTC calling a public interaction meet, invite all the companies HRs (who had supported the bus day in their companies), NGOs, general public to communicate their plans for the next Bus Day. BMTC has to provide responses to the feedback that the public has submitted to them since the first Bus Day.

If the things are planned the same way, the Next Bus Day would be much more low key affair. Unless BMTC wakes up and try to build relationship with the public by listening, taking actions on the requests/feedback and executing things for tangible results not for symbolic getsures.

In that note, each one of us is also responsible to bring pressure on BMTC to do the right thing. All it will take is just call BMTC mgmt (Zameer Pasha, Garg, Vishwanath etc). Their contact numbers are available online. We might even try calling the transport secretary and convey our message.

For the start, I am going to call tomorrow to all these gentleman and convey my 2 cents. Last week I did called Mr. Vishwanath and had impressed upon for the local shuttles. Not sure Bagmane shuttle was in response to that.

TOI report claims that this busday was a greater success than the last one !

Google transit feed specs are here. We have to see how to get BMTC to gather this data and keep it updated.

SB_YPR:  201R is always full because it's the only bus that spans through several areas at low cost for a volvo. They have marcopolos also on this route, which goes full. The busday special may have been empty because of lack of awareness.

Referring to Vinod's observations, I have also noticed volvo conductors helping commuters - I usually get off at HAL Kalyanmantapa but on 2nd (two days before bus day), I wanted to alight near borewell since I had parked near there instead of my usual parking spot at HAL.

The (lady) conductor on 335E remembered & prompted me well in time before the stop !   This was probably because I had made enquiries as to where exactly the stop was when the ticket was being issued.

Such gestures really help build up clientale since they increase confidence levels amongst people wishing to try buses as an option such as myself :)

Refer to this snippet at the end of the Mid Day report

"An employee of an IT firm in ECO SPACE, Sarjapur ORR said, "One of the demands was to have buses inside our campus. Though BMTC officials assured to address them, the day ended with not even a single bus entering the campus. How can we make Bus Day a success with such a response from BMTC?"

1) Few things about above complaint

• If one of the demand is getting BMTC buses inside the compay campus'es, that is a bit unrealistic. Even I don't expect them to come right till my office building in the huge Bagmane Tech Park. Come to the nearest public bus stand (which is near the lake), and from that point on, it should be Bagmane Tech Park's job to ferry people to buildings (which they do, they run a free shuttle from Tech Park gate to office buildings)
• Like wise, just as another example, for Global Village Campus (2 km off from Mysore Road), BMTC may run shuttles just for Bus Day, but over long term, either GVC should pay BMTC to make the service viable, of GVC itself should run shuttles. BMTC's job is to ensure good coverage for public bus stands close to Job Areas

2) Now, there is one more lesson from the fact that IT park commuters felt the 2nd Bus Day wasn't as successful as first one, while rest of the city felt opposite

• Need focus for Bus day in terms of target audience segmentation. IT corridor commuters are a different segment. We can again get into debates like why should there be different segments of customers for BMTC etc. But the fact is that BMTC has taken a multi-tier service approach, and focusing on multple segments (the lowest income segment - Atal Saarige and similar, regular services, and Vajra) in one Bus Day is not a good idea, we will struggle to stretch that much for just one day.

SB - Very correct. The other day, someone was mentioning that BMTC buses do not go into Wipro campus on Sarjapur rd, which means he would have to walk some 400 mtrs from the bus stop on Sarjapur rd, & if buses go in, he would start using them. Until then, he prefers his car.

How can public buses be expected to operate on private property ? It will be seen as a bias, unless the facility is within public areas, such as main streets in electronic city or peenya.

BMTC, providing differentiated services to all sections of society, cannot concentrate busday efforts only on one section or one area, even if it means that efforts might be spread too thin. After all, events like busday are for marketing bus travel in preference to private travel for the city as a whole, which means all segments & all areas.

The IT areas had their share with the first busday & too many other areas that need attention remain. Thus, the modus operandi being followed by BMTC is correct, in my opinion, & results are there to be seen.

Concentrating only on IT areas will again be seen as biased efforts for one section alone, & BMTC has taken steps to thwart such criticism early on.

higher focus on white collar job area corridors can be defended by the fact that converting these folks will have the maximum impact on road congestion

SB - I agree, this is quite true.

However, our citizens have funny ways of reading things. We saw how & where all the volvo bus debate went. Instead of welcoming a comfortable alternative for commuters, particularly in hot summer months, there were so many allegations of bias, unjustifiable high costs, subsidies, favoritism, & even untouchability - & this was from many who were already volvo bus users themselves.

I was referring to the potential for these sort of allegations surfacing if busdays were held only for some select corridors, such as the IT corridors. In this respect, BMTC has acted early to protect themselves from such criticism.

Graduating from busdays, I think BMTC could do much better if they improve on promotional efforts & spread of information - there is a clear consensus on this. How about ads in the print media before each busday, identifying routes /areas ?

I have been using KSRTC's webpage, & to me it has been a really great experience - I have booked tickets so many times now (BTW, their webpage has won an award recently).

Similarly, BMTC must concentrate much more & publish route information & search features for buses on the web as also circulate such info through various means such as printed material.