Bicycles on BMTC

One of the biggest hits of the first cycle day amongst people was BMTC allowing people to carry cycles to cycle day in their buses. Lots of people liked it. We even communicated the same to BMTC. We had hopes of getting them to repeat it and also extend it to non cycle day days. Instead they pulled out of this committment. While they had legitimate concerns that allowing bikes in buses during peak hours might inconvinience passengers, it wasnt the case on cycle day atleast, which was on a sunday early morning during non peak non office hours. To be fair, they are still open to the idea of putting bike racks in front of buses but that has 2 problems. 

1. The rack must be designed so there is no damage to buses & the cycles. The vendors for the same are few & far between and none in India. 

2. More importantly, any attachment like racks to the buses violates MV act which makes it exceed the max length of buses as defined in the act.

Both of these are surmountable. One of the options is to push this idea further & take it to closure, which will mean BMTC makes representation to the center thru GoK to get MV act amended or an exception given to enable this. 

Enter Cyclist-Bus

Another approach (which might be faster) will be to leave all the passenger buses alone and make a bus with standard MV dimensions but specifically for cyclists. How will that look? It will probably be a low floor full bus/minibus chassis to begin with but the body will be customized to have wide doors for entry & exit with cycles (as big as the volvo center exit). On the inside foldable seats to one side & angled bike racks to the other. 

There are always questions of viability etc with any new service but as we have seen a clever choice of routes along with a piloting mode of operating this will be attractive. We are convinced that in the cycle capital of India, Bangalore, this will never be an issue. To start with 3 services can run one on ORR from Hebbal to Silkboard another from MGroad station to Whitefield  along OMR (KRpuram interchange to ORR route), third from MG road station to Electronic city(SB interchange to ORR route). This way we will get around the MV act hurdles & still get BMTC to do something within their control. These routes will cover the IT belt and once traction is built we can extend it to other zones.

This pilot can be run with anybody interested in funding 3 buses which run on these 3 routes for 1 year. There will be a charge for both the passenger & the cycle and passes can be issued.  It will not carry noncyclist passengers. Advantage of having dedicated cycle bus is that we dont have to limited by either the number of cycles that can be loaded nor the complaints from passengers that cyclists are delaying the schedule.

On a longer term basis private operators can be allowed to run this bike bus services depending on the uptake of these services. If it doesnt take off remove the stands, put more seats & run these buses as normal buses.

Any ideas on how we can help bicycles to be carried across town so it can be used as a last mile?