Local shuttle ideas for next Bus Day (March 4)
Now that BMTC and Transport Minister have liked the concept, let us make suggestions to make the most, and more immportant. meaningful use of the idea-pad cum marketing event called Bus Day.
For starters, I think we should try do not more than 2 corridors on each Bus day. 5 is a lot to cover and do, there is no point being wide but thin in coverage.
If we stick to Hosur Road and old Airport in terms of focus, can we try local shuttles from more points on these trunk routes? Here are the suggestions, in the decreasing order of expected volumes. Yes, idea should be to try on Bus Day to see usage and get feedback. All are commuter shuttles, won't need throughout the day.
1. Domlur to Embassy Golf Links Area
EGL is a large job area near the trunk route of Old Airport Road, everyone except those coming from South Bangalore and Koramangala wanting to come to EGL via Bus will have to make a change at Domlur Bus stand. Run a shuttle from here to EGL. Very simple route, 1 Bus may do.
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2. Forum Bus stand or Check Post on Hosur Road to Koramangala
Could be two loops, like we did for Whitefield Saarige. Pick people from the Hosur Road corridor, and drop them to interiors of Koramangala. May need 2 buses per loop, need to think a bit about the exact loops as there are 1-ways involved.
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3. HAL Airpot and Old Madras Road to Bagmane Tech Park
1 loop, pick people up from HAL Bus stand, drop them at Bagmane Tech Park, Run up to Old Madras Road, back to Bagmane, and then to HAL Bus Stand. 2 Buses may do just fine.
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4. Marathahalli Entrance to i2/Logica offices. Can extend this to Outer Ring Road.
Volumes would be low here, but 1 Bus to move people from Varthur Road to the job area, and back may do. If the bus can go all the way to Outer Ring Road, then the loop will touch two trunk routes.
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In the long run, these can't be run by BMTC
Except for perhaps Koramangala, Whitefield etc (where the shuttle is not dedicated to a job center), running shuttles specific to job centers may not work out for BMTC.
There are several options. One of them is to see if private parties could be interested in running local shuttles. We have talked about it, park this option for now.
Other option is to:
Second point above will run into a problem because in the 'dedicated' BMTC buses for job areas / companies, employees get guaranteed seating (mostly). But if they are made to take regular scheduls, and then change to schedule, they will find it inconvenient.
Making job centers run shuttles may be a better idea. But how do you entice them?
Shuttles for bus day can be extended /improved.
SB - Referring to your maps with shuttle routes, some improvements & extensions can be made :
1) Domlur /EGL - There are no breaks on the dividers on IRR. If the divider is broken to allow buses to cross, other traffic will also start using them leading to chaos at peak times. Also, an exclusive shuttle service for EGL might not really be a necessity (except at peak hours during bus days!).
A better option (& a solution for EGL) is for some buses proceeding along old airport road (such as a variat of 335E) to operate as follows:
When proceeding to Majestic, turn into wind tunnel rd, go around golf course & join IRR, after which proceed along IRR to turn back at U-turn & rejoin old airport rd again at domlur & continue the trip towards Majestic.
When bound for Whitefield, turn right into IRR at domlur flyover & follow the same route via golf course & wind tunnel road to rejoin old airport rd at ISRO.
This way, the connectivity issue for EGL should be solved for good. I think the roads inside are wide enough for buses to operate regularly along this deviation.
2) The shuttle route for Koramangala has ignored most of Koramangala ! Shuttles must also cover Sarjapur rd, 80-ft rd (Shinivagalu mn rd on google map) upto the end (bus terminus) & 100 ft rd.
7th cross, madivala rds (which are already bus routes) & 8th main can also be used as all these are wide roads.
3) The BTP shuttle route on Suranjandas rd can also include Jeevanbhimnagar bus terminus for pickups /dropoffs.
4) As already guessed by you, buses cannot ply beyond Logica tech park as the road past Logica is narrow & also, there are weak bridges across creeks adjacent Bellandur tank. The road at the periphery of Bellandur tank is also very narrow. Thus, buses would have to turn back to Varthur rd.