Illegal buses - Bootlegging in Prohibition?

The news report states :

One can see a number of old buses, most of them bought either from the coastal districts of the State or from a neighbouring State, plying between K.R. Market and Nagawara via Shivajinagar; K.R. Market and Hessarghatta via Majestic; K.R. Market and Marathalli; K.R. Market and Hoskote; K.R. Market and Vijayanagar K.R. Market and Kengeri, and K.R. Market and Ramanagaram to name only a few routes.

Thus, most of these sub-standard buses appear to operate out from KR market. I don't think it would be hard to accost them there itself - at KR market. Once they are driven out from there, they will of course find a new location, but the efforts to weed them out has to be done continuously.

I also noticed a lot of shabby mini-buses on Hosur road with TN or Kerala plates - something needs to be done there as well.

And what does this say about the demand supply gap for public transport services?

Time for BMTC to rethink and let other players play in the local public transport market. There is scope for everyone. BMTC can make more than what it makes, and perhaps 2-3 more players can thrive.

If you have ban you will get deadly arrack and not a Jhonnie Walker.

Good points to ponder over. First of all, I think BMTC has services to all the destinations pointed out in the Hindu report, as also the Whitefield-Marathalli route, but frequencies may be insufficient & reliability low, I guess.

These mini-buses & vans may also be charging lesser (& make up by excessively over-crowding their buses /vans & spending less on maintenance). Thus, some find it attractive & are prepared to take risk/s to save some money.

I see two possibilities :

1) Ban them altogether & carry out very strict enforcement to eliminate them & continue monitoring to ensure they do not operate + increase BMTC frequencies to all these areas.

This is unlikely to happen as enforcement is pathetic & may also be a difficult objective before mass-transits are in place, given that volumes of traffic are too high & traffic cops are busy & engaged in monitoring road traffic as a whole.

By increasing private participation of the kind seen on urban or semi-urban routes (ie. contract carriages with the resultant misuse & corruption), what is bound to happen is misuse on a much bigger scale with sub-standard services & this will lead to unsafe roads, similar to the blue line in delhi, mangalore or kochi, where road conditions are much worse.

Presently, since the scale of these operations is less, it hasn't posed too many risks here, yet.

2) Allow them to operate in semi-urban /peripheral areas, but again monitoring will have to be very tight to prevent misuse. Here again, this might be difficult in the prevailing conditions with too much traffic.

Either ways, I think we lose out - the key is to first make things more manageable, which is to reduce traffic to acceptable levels. The kind of formal licenses issued to bus operators in mangalore, kochi or even in chennai, despite the lesser no. of vehicles there, has not resulted in attracting the better, more responsible players who offer good services. The quality of service has remained pathetic & BMTC is better, though they need to improve on reach & reliability.

As regards comparisons with Al Capone, he did provide good quality liquor in chicago illegaly (importing it from Canada).

The ground reality here is quite different - & it appears that you only get arrack, at least that has been the story so far if you see the buses in mangalore & kochi !

BMTC can be good by itself, but it has some way to go to get there.

Regardless of the side you take in this monopoly vs open market debate, last line from IDS is true. If this was legal business, you would not be seeing such shabby illegal buses on the road. Like this one:

Keep that debate aside for a moment. But do agree that without a responsible regulator in place, hazardous quality levels like above would be possible in both public monopoly as well as open market worlds. If you do, then I would say pitch for that tight regulator first. And we will use the time to settle the evergreen public private debate.

the public bus service corporation has vested interests in not putting up bus quality standards as a part of the contract

What you mention is quite likely. A mangalore or a kochi can possibly also make do with the "one size fits all" norm that has existed in India for long & quality concerns may not matter much there, yet. Further, road traffic levels, though very chaotic are not as high as in bangalore.

Do you believe the current providers will bring in volvos into service when they know it can be seized? 

This is a valid point & I agree that if quality levels, such as vehicle type, age, etc. are set out, the standards may improve, subject again to strict enforcement - & this will involve multiple agencies.

But I would like to ponder over SB's observation :

you have a demand for ultra low cost transportation in the city

Very true - the pictures demonstrate this well enough. SB says pitch for that tight regulator first, but we are nowhere close to this - & we are not sure if we will ever have such a regulator. Low fares automatically mean low service quality, & one cannot expect much other than what we see in the pictures. If service criteria is set out to improve quality standards, fares will go up & be on par with BMTC !

Perhaps we could confine such ultra-low cost operators (with minimal service criteria, & therefore very low fares) to areas outside ORR - this may have a chance for some enforcement to be effective, I think. This would of course ignore such services to areas within ORR - I'm sure there is such a need too.

@ Naveen

Kochi is my home town, and I visit the city quite often. And, I use every opportunity to avail the buses services (totally privatised) there (inspite of having enough cars at my disposal), largely because of the excellent connectivity, frequency, reliability, and cleanliness (check page 41 of this report, where the PT trips percentage for Kochi is listed at 51 - amongst the highest in the country, whereas, for Bangalore, it is 35. Again, for comparison purposes, for Trivandrum, where the services are again the monopoly of the government, it is just 21).

The only negative aspect of the Kochi services is the rash driving, resulting mainly out of the unviable fare regime - read the following excerpts from the study commissioned by Ministry of Petroleum, cited by me here.
 

• Clearly, there is a strong case for promoting private enterprise in meeting transport needs in urban areas.
  
• An aspect of public policy that impacts on provision and expansion of public transport either by state owned utilities or by private entrepreneurs, relates to the unviable fare structures imposed by the authority.
  
• With improved efficiency, the fare structure can continue to remain low while still providing for overall viability of the operations.

Whatever, in this aspect also, I don't think they are any worse than our own BMTC. And, if freed from the license-permit regime, they could provide a model for the rest of the country to follow, atleast at the lower end.

I have stated this many times before, and I didn't want to repeat myself all over again. But, unmindful of it all, when you carry on as if you are the ultimate authority on the Kochi scene, I feel compelled not to allow it to pass without comment.

I expect it's more or less the same in Mangalore (again, fully privatised) also. But, since I do not have first hand experience, I shall refrain from making any assertions. However, here's a view which more or less corroborates mine.

Further, quoting you from here

When I had suggested operation of mini-buses on narrow streets to access interior areas that are difficult to access with larger buses, they had stated that they would rather operate the larger buses than mini-buses as maintenance costs were higher & it was difficult to maintain mini-buses since they were not reliable - thus, operation of mini-buses was unviable. I found this hard to accept as many mini-buses were in operation satisfactorily (such as Swaraj Mazda & Tata Starbus) - being operated by several private companies for their staff.

But, for all that, it's surprising that you would rather remain an apologist for BMTC, than demand the opening up of the sector for competition. Oh yes, the regulator has to come first, right!? It's the chicken and egg situation all over again. And, the answer to that, I have tried to state here. But, you would prefer the status quo. And, that's exactly what the BMTC, Transport Dept lot want too. But, mind you, it's the city and citizens, particularly the aam admi, that are having to pay the huge price for it all.
 

Fair enough - Murali's word against Naveen's on quality of bus services in Kochi and Mangalore. Regardless, I see some common ground in all the well-meaning talk that has happened on this subject.

Just to give this a bit more visibility, allow me to create a new thread to talk concrete proposals around BMTC and possible open-market experiments.

We have been doing good discussions (and some members are engaging with BMTC as well) on suggestions for BMTC to work and improve in the present monopoly setup (local shuttles, bus stands, routing reforms, etc etc). It is only fair that we explore the open market angle also a bit deeper, and without rhetorical for or against arguments.

What I expect from BMTC buses is at least 50% chance to get a seat. If you get in a BMTC bus from Binnamangala to KR Puram after 7 p.m., there is 90% chance you wont get a seat, so I try to go in private buses in that route, school buses and buses with BPO contracts. The reason for lack of buses at that time I believe is the passes, which people buy only in the morning.

About Kochi, there are many faults. Most bus owners employ extralegal measures. Many, many who used to run buses have gone bankrupt because of these practices. Then the number of buses drastically reduce after say 8 p.m. then the preference is profit over service.

The competition between buses, I believe, is different from competition in other fields because driving over the speed limit and other traffic violations are criminal offences and they employ such practices to get competitive advantage.

The interstate buses run by private sector are very expensive. I believe this is mainly because only luxury buses are running in interstate routes. Ordinary buses are prevented from running in those routes by some laws, which is anticompetive but designed by private sector itself. They also try their best sabotage alternate facilities like railways, as has been discussed before.