Praja - BMTC meeting

Hi,

I am very much interested in joining this meeting.

Before we meet BMTC it is better to list out our suggestions to them.

K.V.Pathy

I hope to come for the meeting (other commitments permitting).

The basic need for car users in swithing over to Public Transport is last mile connectivity, i.e. from residence/work place to bus stop of high end bus routes .

For this, feeder buses are needed to cover each and every nook and corner of the city & suburbs. This is possible ( as in our neighbouring States) by deploying MINI BUSES (not maxi cabs or Tempos which have proved to be hazardous).

In case BMTC is not in a position to provide such service for their own reasons, private operators should be deployed (again this is being done successfully in neighbouring States like Tamilnadu, at much more economical fares to commuters and the operators also making enough profits).

Other obvious requirements are-

Wide publicity to the routes and timings of the high end buses through newspapers until BMTC website is recommissioned. A separate time table for each route with route map may be printed and sold for a nominal price of say, 50P. (such individual route time tables are distributed free at the Information/Help Desks of Public Transport abroad).

The BMTC enquiry offices should be manned by trained and knowledgeable senior staff who really know the BMTC routes. They should also be provided with full information on the timings and route maps of all the routes. (At present the staff at the enquiry no. 12667 have no knowledge and they invariably reply that the information is not available on their computer!).

The Volvo or similar services should be provided for all Railway stations, as is being done for BIAL airport. The subway between City Railway station and Majestic Bus station is not at all fit for use by most commuters, esp. Senior citizens, women and children with their baggage (even minimum unavoidale ones), due to the faulty design of this subway with numerous stairs, sloping and wet, dark , serpentine passages making it harsh on the users and it takes at least half-an-hour to transit from bus platform to train platform, that too if they already have reserved tickets.

K.V.Pathy

The Meeting agenda for the upcoming meeting with BMTC has been added to the original Post. All those who have shown interests to attend this meeting pls send a PM to Manjari with your email IDs and also Plan on a Co-ordination Meeting (SKYPE) to be held on Tuesday @ 10 PM IST.

My e-mail i.d. is

pathykv@gmail.com.

I am not sure of being on SKYPE.

K.V.Pathy

Thanks to all those who have shown interest to attend this meeting. Mnay thanks to all those who have posted their feedback on BMTC in general.

As mentioned earlier this BMTC meeting will be conducted with at most professionalism as the event demands. This meeting is being called at the behest of BMTC. Therefore expectations are more from BMTC side also. We are leveraging this meeting to put across some important aspects that have been discussed here on Praja w.r.t BMTC.

Let us take baby steps and keep working with BMTC to realize objectives that have synergies between 2 entities. The presentation from Praja will cover all the high level discussion points that encourages BMTC to take up the consolidation and rationalization of routes, services and helpful customer service via websites, phone etc.

Since BMTC is very vast subject, presentation is being planned to give a gist of of all our discussions. As not to leave any suggestions left out, I request a volunteer to collate all the suggestions made on this post and make them into a comprehensive list. I am hoping that we can hand over this list to the BMTC during their meeting and we can assign somebody from amongst us to us follow up on thta list.

Any volunteers?

Syed

My Questions to BMTC

(1) First of all, I have a basic question, how many drivers hired actually got a proper driving training about safety, traffic rules i.e. basic road-sense? Earlier when volvos were introduced we see them being driven by specialized and trained drivers, but the scene is no more the same.

(2) I see most of the times that BMTC bus drivers doesn't follow traffic rules, they don't see the RED light to stop their big vehicle.

(3) Also, I saw on many roads that its written "Buses keep left", and that's what intended also, so that they can stop at the bus-stops etc, but that is never never followed,  bus drivers drive on full road where ver they see space, creating chaos for other vehicles specially the two-vehicles.

(4) Do we really have designated bus stops? If yes, why are not they maintained properly (Clean and visible). And if they are maintained also, then why doesn't bus stop at the designated bus-stops?

(5) Whenever buses stops, why  don't they stop on the extreme left of the road, I always see buses stopping at bus-stop on non-bus-stop leaving 6-7 feet space on their left, leaving very less space on their rightside road, thereby creating traffic jams behind them.

(6) Above point is true for all the buses, to make the situation worse, another BMTC bus try to overtake this stopped bus from right and stand in front of this bus. During process of overtaking, the other bus always get jammed in between, also cause other vehicles to stop as well and cause a lot of traffic jam in that particular area.

(7) I understand that we are so pathetic about lane-discipline but I believe we should atleast understand that if you have to turn left, you should stand in leftmost lane, and if you have to take right, you should stop on rightmost lane, but I always find BMTC buses do stand wherever they find space and move forward, and when they have to take turn, they take left turn far away from the rightmost lane, and right turn far away from the leftmost lane. (Go to HSR layout(BDA comp)-koramangala junction while coming from agara lake towards BTM, you can see it yourselves.)

Whatever I said above is very very true, if you don't feel so, I can prove every other point of mine by taking pictures of above irregularities standing by my points.

Please consider these points as proper issues, and try to address them, that way we can reduce our traffic jam by 30-40%.
Also, this way, BMTC will generate respect in citizen's heart, and that is the way we can attract more and more people to leave their private vehicles and start using public transport.
Looking at current situation, everyone is so pessimistic about BMTC by looking at their behaviour on roads, every other vehicle driver (2 or 4 wheeler) tries to maintain distance from a passing-by bus and that reflects in real life too.
We need to address this as soon as possible if we really want to make our city traffic-jam free, GREEN, less-polluted.

 I used to drive my car to work earlier, but now use the Volvo service frequently. My comments are based on my travel on the Volvo 500 series buses.

The BMTC drivers and conductors are generally polite and will even oblige you by stopping at unscheduled stops to drop you off. And if they happen to be on the left lane they will even stop to pick you up at unscheduled stops if you wave at them and they notice you.

However the drivers don’t make it a point to be on the left lane when they approach a bus stop. If there is a bus already stopped at the bus stop they sometimes proceed without stopping. However If they happen to notice someone waving and running behind the bus to catch it they may eventually stop. Also if someone wants to get off the bus in such a situation, they will stop the bus eventually to let him off.

Also even if they stop, at the bus stop, they may not stop close to the edge of the road. It could be several feet from the edge of the road thus endangering the life of the passengers.

These are some suggestions that can be implemented immediately without any major cost:

1. Strictly ensure that the buses remain in the left lane when they approach any bus stop.
2. Stop exactly at the bus shelter and do not make people run behind the bus. If there is no bus shelter, then BMTC should install a pole which indicates the exact location of the bus stand. The bus should stop with its front door within a couple of feet from this pole.
3. Stop the bus such that it is as close as possible to the bus shelter, so that the passengers can step into the bus directly from the bus shelter. If there is no bus shelter, then stop close to the foot path. With the maneuverability that a Volvo provides this should be trivial for the drivers to do this.
4. If there is a bus already stopped at the bus stand, then wait for it leave and then approach the bus stand. Also ensure that there is no passenger waiting to board the bus before the bus proceeds. Never overtake the stopped bus and go ahead of the bus thus forcing the passengers to run behind the bus. 

There are a few more suggestions which could have some costs associated with it and could be taken up on a long term basis.

1. Install a stop request button near the rear door. This will allow people at the rear to get out without winding their way to the front through a crowded bus. Once the button is pressed an indicator should light up confirming that the request has been registered. In fact I am surprised that the Volvo buses don’t have this feature after costing a fortune.
2. Improve the scrolling destination displays so that they provide the bilingual information in a concise manner. Each iteration of the two languages should ideally complete within a few seconds. Currently some of them (usually the Kannada version) take ages to go through one loop and it is not possible to make out the destination quickly. I have also noticed in some cases only one language being shown - either Kannada or English.
3. Figure out a way to avoid buses on the same route arriving at a stop at the same time. Make them run at a more regular frequency. One way to do this is throttling them at the starting point, that is delay the departure of a bus slightly if the previous one left very late.

Hi,

I just wanted to put here some suggestion from praja.in itself that I thought are important.

In my opinion suggestion in this link  and others praja.in/en/blog/nagrajprabhu/2009/08/08/public-transporation-there-better-way-handle-it#comment-16255

Increase the buses during the peak hour (7.30AM to 10.30 AM) and 4 to 9 PM. Currently maximum buses ply between 10.30 AM and 5.30 (General shift is 10-6) PM ... This is a very good that could be presented to BMTC.

This link  praja.in/en/blog/silkboard/2009/07/08/bmtc-corruption-and-ticket-less-rides#comment-15329   says that Generally the bus routes in the city are categorized as 
1. profitable routes  (where commuter density is high)
2. non-profitable routes.
I hope BMTC could form a system which does justice to the staff and also the passengers with less scope for manipulation.

Thanks for the initiative.

Dear Manjari,

Further to our useful Skype conf. of yesterday,

please ask BMTC for the following info. related to the one point agenda-

1. No. of officers/top managers who are allotted official cars.

2.No. of other officials/staff paid car allownce

3. No. of officials/staff paid two wheeler allownce

4. No. of the above people who have changed over to BMTC buses.

Once we get the above info. we can analyse the causes of the not switching over, which will be equalllly applicabe to the other car/private vehicle users.

K.V.Pathy

Dear Manjari,

If possible please raise one query from my side.

How many BMTC buses run as chartered buses ( for companies like ITI , BEL, INFY etc) ?

When the demand for public transport is most ( peak hours - generally office opening and closing hours)  onus is on BMTC needs to catch up and run maximum no of  buses - utilize full capacity (buses/drivers) available.

But I think by operating some chartered buses ( obviously during peak hours) BMTC effectively does the opposite.

Because private operators provide chartered service , and by law they cannot provide public transport ,  If chartered service supply is scarce market forces will make sure that supply meets the demand. I hope BMTC is not obliged to provide chartered service. If they are then I think BMTC should give up monopoly.

By and large I am quite happy with BMTC services. Ofcourse there is a lot of room for improvement. I believe BMTC is "getting there" ( improving day by day). 

I will try to make it to the next meeting.

Thanks

~Girish

Rome was not built in a day.

@ Girish - Welcome to PRAJA. As for the point made by you, I suggest you take a look at this

@ Manjari, Syedbhai, and all those involved in this exercise - may be, you want to browse through the following blogs while at the job
http://praja.in/node/838
http://praja.in/en/blog/naveen/2008/06/10/ttmcs-will-they-solve-problems#comment-5614

As for me, while pinning some hopes on Prof Ashwin Mahesh's efforts at improving BMTC's services, I still believe that the real big ticket change can happen only through this, and I shall continue talking that language.

Muralidhar Rao

VKM sir,

2 important corrections that is needed w.r.t your earlier comment.

1. The meeting will be attended by BMTC officials and Praja members. BMTC officials are led by CTMO Mr. K.S.Vishwanath and others.
2. Agenda for Praja is to discuss opportunities where it can help Promote Public transport (in this case BMTC) services among the private vehicle users.

Praja's mandate is to promote public transport whether it is by BMTC or even any private service provider (if they are allowed to operate). It is not that Praja will market Volvo service or any particular service for a particular segment. Over all objective is to push BMTC to offer services that caters to all sections of Bangalore residents.

Any other assumption w.r.t this meeting is incorrect and far from truth. I urge members to participate in the meeting and wait for outcome of the meeting to come to any connclusions.

Syed

 

Thanks manjariji for having taken the 'additional' responsibility of collating earlier posts of concerns on public transport by prajas.

Syed Bhai,

With regard to prajas effective involvment from grass roots level It will not be out of context if I mention that - only 5 per cent of India's population of 1940s were actually involved and some lost their life for the sake of our non-violent struggle for independence and the other 95 per cent are now enjoying it.

- Nodi swamy naavu irode heege.

- vasanth mysoremath

I had written a mail to ctmobmtc@gmail.com to enhance the bus service from one junction to another junction . Till date i have wriiten many replies & reminders , but off late only two replies from their end & even have been to their good office & have met their chief Traffic controller . The beloved staff & their office is a great eye washer & good to be a political drama training college .

They convince & speak very positively but in vain . It takes 9-10 moths to deliver a baby . But i dont think it might take even more for the BMTC officials  just to process a mail  . Correct me if I am wrong.

Need to write to the much beloved BMTC MD . But , i am not finding his official e-mail ID . If anybody can provide , it will be a great effort in way of escalating the same .

 

With Thanks ,

Rohit