Quoting myself from an earlier post "I predict the irrelevance of the auto in the transport scheme within the next 5 years."
Nanos may push autos out of B’lore
Looks like we dont have to wait 5 years for my prediction
But we have a new problem on our hands, extension of the monopoly in city transport. It will become dangerous if they use public money to undercut their prices.
Instead tie up with disorganized taxi companies and offer revenue sharing scheme on providing last mile. BMTC can even count the passengers ferried by the taxi companies to their buses if they make a distinct ticket & let the taxi issue them. This feeder mechanism can be leveraged by BMRC & BCRAL (the commuter rail authority) as well like envisaged by the dept.
BMTC seems to have thrown the ball for last mile & feeder away from its court. This can be detrimental if they believe they can continue to operate the way they are and end up duplicating metro routes and diminishing the value of the other mass transport systems instead of supplementing them.
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Dilution of future plans
Further car based last mile erodes cost advantage of PT, reducing the incentive to PT move and the move towards pedestrian friendly city. This may also make BMTC complacent to making the much needed route rationalization happen. Of course if it is a regular point to point taxi service it raises the question of the governments move into this area when they are being pushed to get out of airlines business and they do PPP for city/suburban trains anyway.
So politics enters..............
answer is Nano is not selling well and nor is the reslae price good if noticed
After the Gujarat govt is alleged to have given a long term subsidy + land = Rs.30,000 crs then maybe the job of a profiteer monopoly to bail out both the Govt of Gujart and also the Tatas thru sales
so lets look beyond to the politics and the LINK is BJP govt in both states, and Nano factpry at Sanand rolling out 10-20,000 cars / year.
So what happens if they are not sold Does the Govt bail it out big time
TVS, Bajaj etc will nto be happy but 10,000 more cars on the road in the next 5-7 years just becoz no one else will buy? Pathetic,,,,,
State sector bailing out the private why? because the state is a PARTNER in growth?
Offsets?
because the state is a PARTNER in growth
If they go ahead, they could discuss offsets for this purchase.
pick the eco angle
Cities need to play an increasing role so what about the worldwide heatwave. The Global is very close to the local. so shd big buisness continue this at all? cut down on auto car production, away from dependence on big oil
Lets change tack to non powered cycle rickshaws not like those in Oxford, England but maybe in Malaya, neighbourhood may give safer travel.
Climate change offsets? shd we not change lifestyles to a restructured future in a city.
not Carbon prcing and trading ? but Urban food production
Because just as much as mobility, we will need to feed the popln of an urbanised future?
Carbon footprints of cities will have to reduce the NUTP points to that but are the car owning citizens ready to do that
Climate change offsets? No I
Climate change offsets?
No I actually meant business offsets, like in defense offsets.
okay, lets talk the subject
Global warming, politcs, conspiracy etc are always interesting to add to any discussion, global or local.
But, let us get to the real subject - last mile problem.
Nano, auto or whatever, let us put things on table first
Talking more ...
To talk even more ...
other issues need to be tackled too!!
Hand in hand with last mile connectivity, other issues need to be tackled too -
- physical separation of PT buses from non PT traffic.
- intermeshing of PT buses and metro in an integrated network with easy interchangeability
- most importantly unrban planning
I had penned my thoughts in an article - http://praja.in/en/blog/blrpraj/2009/09/18/draft-document-detailing-requirements-efficient-public-transport-system For anybody who is interested please read that.
SB, they seem to be interested in last-mile
Pranav,
BMTC is not interested in providing last mile solution. It is NOT.
Last month, I had travelled in a taxi run by CelCabs, one of the several radio taxi operators in Bangalore. On the back of the front seat was a panel displaying their fares, and a special mention of "BMTC HOME CONNECT SERVICES", which claimed to be feeder services to BMTC bus stops.
I checked out their website (www.celcabs.com/blr-fares.html - scroll to the middle of the page) and found the same information. At present, it seems to be restricted to VV stops, but if the concept is exterpolated to other services, (perhaps with Nanos and at a cheaper rate), I don't see why it shouldn't be viable. Any thoughts?
~~~~
Manish.
Not a bad idea though!! They
Not a bad idea though!! They ahve displayed fares from bMTC BIAS stop to home in their website. Probably their services can be better utilized.
Nowadays soem autos prefer sharing system an do so people. at Marenhalli stop in the evening times you find many auto drivers shouting out the names like Puttnhalli,Brigade etc and board about 4 people in them. dont know what they charge. Otherwise these are mainly restricted to the Hosur road Kudlu and Eelctronic city junctions-Hope we can have bigger vehicles like those in Chennai auto system for these short distances
SHARE autos
Like in other Cities, Bangalore should intoduce Share Autos officially. This will also help in partly reducing the hardship of increased auto fares.
K.V.Pathy
It didn't happen "officially"
Bangalore should intoduce Share Autos officially
To my knowledge, no city has "officially" introduced share autos or taxis. It's just that in places like Mumbai, one has a train system that results in a lot of commuters emerging from stations all at the same time, ready for shared taxis in locations such as Churchgate with many people that want to get to Nariman point in peak hours. So, we have taxis that charge some 5rs per head that get you there sharing with 4 others (The taxi wallah makes 25rs instead of the minimum 14rs, so he has an incentive to take many people together who also prefer to share taxi to cut individual costs).
In Chennai, there are these auto "wagons" that take upto 10-12 or more people, & in Kolkata, we have the cycle rickshaws but again, they are driven by demand & operate due to the large percentage of PT users - not because they have been introduced "officially" - they probably applied for licenses & were given them, nothing more official than this.
If there is sufficient demand for such "sharing", autos or taxis or autowagons or any such contraption, it will find it's way into the arena automatically & find a license.
City transport operators such as BMTC cannot be expected to undertake the responsibility for last mile - their charter is only to operate PT services upto wherever roads permit.
Share Autos
BMTC is least bothered about last mile as we know.
But Transport Dept. has to encourage Share autos by issuing licences, which is presently not allowed in Bangalore.
K.V.Pathy
share auto = PT?
How is a share auto service different from a bus service except for form factor? Wouldnt share autos then be considered public transport and hence require a contract carriage license? If they have to offer non point to point service wouldnt they need a stage carrier license to operate?
Share autos did exist
till about 5-6 years ago share autos did exist in bangalore. I'm not sure whether that was legal or not.
I have used the shared auto from Banashankari bus stop to Uttarahalli. Those days there was no BMTC service to Uttarahalli and the shared auto was a popular choice.
Sharing - Purely based on demand
As far as I know, shared taxis or autos do not exist in any city - they probably hold normal taxi or auto or contract carriage licenses but since operation as shared taxis or autos is more profitable, they engage in such trade at certain times during the day such as peak hours.
During my last visit (Apr-10), I noticed that this was also happening in Navi Mumbai where autos take upto five or even six people to seawood or juinagar train stations from surrounding areas & charge a flat 4rs each, even for distances of 3-4km, but these were ordinary rickshaws - nothing different about them, similar to the shared taxis in south mumbai (ie. those that operate between churchgate train terminus & Nariman point during peak hrs).
For bangalore, until a mass train service becomes operational, I don't think shared vehicles will appear on the scene in a big way since there are very few destinations such as train stations that can attract large number of commuters continuously.