BMTC - focus areas and recent initiatives
Folks,
Taking things forward from our last Praja meet and to brain storm and plan activities on tracking BMTC initiatives, here's my bit to get things started on a few things that deserve note.
1. Big-10 and HOHO services - scalability and scope for improvements.
Taking cues from ABIDE, BMTC has started gearing up to run “Big 10 Road Services” on trunk roads and “Kendra Saarige” in Central Business District (CBD). We have started to witness good numbers building up on two of the Big-10 routes currently operational Trinity - Whitefield and Vellara - E City. Banneragatta Road Big-10 operations starting Monday would have built up as we speak.
The Blue Lines and the Yellow lines meant to be providing auxilliary services to the Big-10s for transporting commuters to various points in the CBD. There have been posts questioning the handling of each of these services in unision, how a synchronised service of a Big-10 feeding a KS and vice versa. There is a need to track this pilot project, bring to light the loopholes and get some quick wins to expand these services across the city.
2. BMTC Fleet expansion plans
BMTC's take on recommendations by ABIDE towards fleet expansion. There is a need to seek data about routes where there is a need to get more buses to be running. Considerations regarding optimizing the existing fleet without expansion, by effective time management and synchronizing schedules to meet the growing demands in the city. Acertainly viable option over the former.
3. Organised Bus bays and efficient TTMCs
Follow up on BMTC plans to introduce TTMC’s at 45 various locations in Bangalore. We have seen the Shantinagar TTMC operational for quite a while now and how has the public response been this far. A survey might be of help. Have we been able to meet the expecations of the rationale behind launching such TTMCs - this might give impetus to driving similar projects across various other parts in the city as planned. Use of BMTC branded small vehicles to tackle last mile connectivity issues - a well debated topic on this forum.
As per a Hindu report, The Traffic Engineering Cell (TEC) of the BBMP has taken up construction of the bays and has invited tenders for 100 bus bays out of 140 proposed by the BMTC. There has been some evident work under progress ahead of KR circle on Nripatunga Road. It is paramount for the BBMP-BMTC to work together overcoming the inter urban planning authority issues we have faced in the past to get these projects running and help them achieve results.
4. Fleet crew compensation models
Ticket sales based compensation for fleet crew in BMTC. Scope for remodelling the remunetration for the crew - Scope for improvements?
Could we get people involved in debating the compensation models practised in BMTC for its fleet crew. At hind sight it looks like the crew focus more on ticket sales per trip on any specific route rather than on the timing their travel. This results in a slowdown in frequency of operations, buses not being available at expected arrival times and add up to traffic congestion.
5. BMTC Routing and Timing mechanisms
Restructuring the existing fleet routing schedules uniformly for both peak and non peak hour travel and implementing the most suggested Direction over Destination strategy. This if found successful could also address the fleet expansion issues.
Improved user reliability is a direct factor of improved availability and streamlining of services. The 335E/333P (KBS-ITPL), 356C/356N(KBS-E City) volvo routes are good examples to this account. The 319C (KBS-OMR-ITPL) though, proved to be a disaster due to dwindling commuter numbers.
6. Rail Vajras - an option to consider?
The Vayu Vajras after having got off to a slow start have become quite popular amongst the flying community today.
There have been discussions held on the forum here to suggest BMTC to expand such services to the rail travellers as well. The Bangalore City Railway Station, Yeshwantpur and Cantonment serving as major junctions provide a good opportunity for the BMTC to run dedicated services from different parts of the city, modalities of the same could be discussed before taking this proposal forward. And if estimated figures were to be right, around 40,000 commuters per day is remarkably good to convince the authorities of revenue generation related concerns if any.
7. BMTC Advertising strategies
We have off late been seeing BIG Street operated bus shelters across almost all parts of the city. As per a recent report, BIG STREET a division of Reliance ADAG, the company specializing in the OOH (Out of Home) media business in an attempt to expand its reach, has taken the ‘Street Furniture’ route by activating 172 hi-tech bus shelters in Bangalore.
BMTC provides Bus side panels and back panels for putting advertisement by the interested companies/organisations. We have seen this on out Vajras and Suvarnas and specific details have also been put up on the BMTC website.
It would be interesting to get first hand information on the advertising models practised at BMTC and their future plans to improvise on them.
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put up time table with mobile numbers for Vajra Services
The problem on relying on the VOLVO service is that one does not what time it is going to arrive.
i occassionally pick up BMTC when i miss my Company bus. Although i wish to travel by Volvo - Vajra Services , i am not sure at what time does it come. I wait for few minutes , let go few normal buses but as time ticks
i just get into the general bus. some times i find within minutes that an Volvo bus following from behind.
GPS based information at bus stops is a distant dream.
i request BMTC put up a simple chart on the bus timings for Volvo at all the bus stops along the Mobile number of the Conductor, so that one can predict at what time the bus would come and also find out where exactly the bus is
incase there is lot of wait time.
I feel this would greatly help in commuters relying on BMTC vajras and vice versa.
Route Number 500D - Hebbal to Silkboard
8:30 AM - 9900512345
9:00 AM - 9900512346
9:30 AM - 9900512347
...
...
>>Organised Bus bays and efficient TTMCs
As you mentioned , i have also seen work going on for bus bays Hebbal to KR puram ORR which is good.
Its a tracking project
Let us do this as a BMTC tracking project. Please keep pure discussions on separate threads, not this one (unless you want to work on this project). We will only ask BMTC for their plans on these points, first directly, and if they don't oblige, then via RTI.
Those who want to join this project, please leave a comment or message for Sudheendra.
BTW, ideally, all Praja projects should involve tracking and not much else. We are here to ask why things are not happening right, offer suggestions and some help if needed. But we are not here to set things right ourselves. Thats neither practical, nor needed. Our philosophy is to ask why the streets are not getting cleaned, and not jump in to clean the streets ourselves. That is because for almost every problem we see around us, there is an assigned and paid public or public-private authority responsible.
Data
We should ask for operational data, not just plans. Transparency is the keyword. Here is a quick brain dump of information that needs to be in the public domain.
Over the last one month, let us ask for an average for:
> Qty of Buses owned by BMTC
> Number of buses running daily passenger services
> Qty assigned for private service (companies, rentals..)
> Qty under regular maintenance
> Number of routes run by BMTC
> Number of buses assigned to each route
> Occupancy rates on each of those routes
> Cost of running each of these routes
etc...
Staff:
> How many people work for BMTC, what is the % for admin, drivers, conductors, etc.
> How much time does each staff member spends in training
> What 'customer service' training is offered specifically for drivers, conductors and controllers
> What is the 'feedback' mechanism for BMTC to understand difficulties BMTC staff faces in delivering their service
> When buses do not stop right at designated bus-stop, what are the 5 main reasons drivers offer
Customer Satisfaction:
> What mechanism is available for public to send feedback to BMTC over the delivery of the service
> How does BMTC rate 'customer satisfaction'?
> In the last one month, how many instances of such feedback were received
> Of all the feedback received in the last 6 months, list 5 most common complaints
Maintenance:
> How much does BMTC spend on maintenance of its bus fleet
> How much is the average maintenance cost for a bus
> What is the maintenance cost of 'other' infrastructure (real estate, counters, buildings, furniture etc)
> Average time between maintenance stops for currently running bus fleet (split into cleaning, minor repair, major repair, overhaul categories)
> What are the pollution control mechanisms in place?
> How often is the emission test done?
> In the knowledge of BMTC, how many buses need rear brake and signal indicators repaired?
> Average age of currently running bus fleet (split into regular, suvarna, parisara vaahini, pushpak, vajra etc)
Well it is time I sign off. We need to clean up the list and post a dozen or so important questions.
Ravi
Survey by IIMB folks on public expectations about BMTC services
Feedback about the kind of responses received from citizen Bangaloreans and parameters deemed to be of most importance by majority of the participitants would help us narrow down on the areas we need to focus on for our tracking initiatives.
results
Data on BMTC buses for IT companies and IT parks
1. No of buses hired by IT companies / IT parks (Infosys, ITPL, Manyata Tech Park, etc all employ BMTC buses exclusively for transporting their employees).
2. Type of buses (Blue colored busses/Pushpaks/Pass Buses/etc) and their number deployed for these services.
3. Revenue BMTC generates from these services.
4. Growth in the number of buses deployed for these services over the last 5 years (just want to check if they have been neglecting public transport for this service - i am told these services are highly profitable for BMTC).
5. What is the profit generated from these services (revenues - expenditure = profit) - to calculate what percentage it contributes to the total profit of BMTC.
Apart from these -
6. Non-transportation revenues (Real estate/advertising) - what is the contribution to the total profits.
7. Average mileage of buses (segment wise - Vajras/Pushpaks/Parisara Vahinis/Pass buses/Blue colored buses) - to understand how efficient these buses are.
8. Total money paid by BMTC towards traffic and other fines (break up).
9. Revenue breakup of individual routes - ok this is messy but atleast in case of services like HoHo and Big10 we need to ask them - to understand if these services are indeed serving the purpose and BMTC is making money to sustain these operations.
10. Total buses on Vaju Vajra Service.
11. Revenues got from Vaju Vajra services - also profits/loses from these services.
12. How many buses are tracked by GPS systems.
13. What is monthly revenues obtained by selling monthly passes (category wise break up needed - there are different types of passes).
14. What is the monthly revenue generated by selling daily passes.
15. What is the monthly fuel expenditure over the past 24 months - to understand how the changes in fuel prices has affected revenues.
16. Monthly wise diesel consumption (breakup needed if different grades of diesel is used).
I can actually go on and on. Can someone list of what data is most needed. Once that is done i can start posting the RTIs.
Lets get started on this
Categories for requesting data......
1. Bus count under various categories -
The BMTC website puts the current count at 5000+. It would be convenient to get splits of the numbers deployed under the Blue Bus , Pushpak, Parisara Vahini, Suvarna, Vajra , Vayu Vajra and other categories run by BMTC.
Could we also request for a comparision chart on the following for each category :
1. Initial cost of deploying each of these kinds into operation
2. Cost of maintainance
3. Occupancy statistics
4. Revenues generated
5. Profits earned.
2. Routing models
We could request for routing mechanisms adopted by the BMTC prior to deploying its services. Is there a consulting body within the BMTC that makes and passes decisions in this regard. This data could be hepful to identify any systemic deficiencies that could be addressed.
3. Fleet and aging
Average number of years buses are kept operational on roads from the day of rollout. Regulations as per the RTO act and compliance practises.
4.Revenue Generation
a. Revenue generated through advertisement space on Suvarna / Vajra / Vayu Vajra services
b. Revenues through leasing out buses to private company transport (ITPL, E-City and other routes)
What is the plan of action?
Collate all the questions!
Ravi, Ritesh, Sudheendra,
Lets collate all the questions that has been posted here and organized them into different categorize, similar to what we did in BIAL RTIs preparation. Creating a spreadsheet would be good idea to analyze the questions and taking out the redundant ones.
Let me know if you need any help.
Syed
Created a "book of projects"
We just got started on building a "project" feature for the website. As we have heard during last few meetings, we need a clear list of active projects on the homepage, and a way of separating "project" posts from discussions. Both have their place even though projects will be far and few when compared to discussions.
However, instead of waiting for an elaborate project feature, for now, let us do this. I have created a Book of Projects (http://praja.in/gyan/book...). Anyone wanting to create a project should that project as a page in this book. The project page itself can be edited as the project makes progress, and we will list recently edited pages from this "book of projecys" on the main page.
Nothing fancy, but I say let us try this to raise visibility of the projects. Once we have build anything fancier (with concept of tasks etc), we can always migrate.
info on bmtc put up on praja-gyan