Once again just in name of diesel hike BMTC has hiked bus fares
The passengers travelling on BMTC buses will now have to pay one rupee extra for the first three stages and Rs 2 more after that. The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation increased fares by 15 per cent on an average from Sunday midnight.
The passengers travelling on daily passes will have to shell out Rs 5 extra. Daily gold pass will now cost Rs 100 and the travel on AC Suvarna Sarige will cost Rs 60.
BMTC is like looting people like anything. They purchase Volvo buses which run empty and put people tax in increasing fares.
Now BMTC costlier than Cars/2-wheelar. Instead of promoting public transport, reducing fare they are upto making profit by looting people.
Check this example:
Agara junction ->silk board . Distance 3.6 KM (google map)
BMTC old fare ->Rs 9 New fare Rs 10 Per Km -> Rs 2.78
Ideally there must be only 2 stages per 2KM. To make profit BMTC has introduced "fern hill" as stage and looting people.
Many people change bus from Silk board whats need of having fern hill as stage which is 300m from silk board.
Take Bike: Petrol rate 76, Mileage 50 km . Per km ->Rs 1.52
So bike v/s BMTC ->BMTC 83% costlier than bike.
Avoid BMTC take your own 2 -wheelar for transport.
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Vajra fare rounding of 5 rupees - Highly injustified
Vajra fare rounding to 5 rupees proves very costly on the pocket with every fare hike. 1 year back fare from my home in Kattriguppe to Marathalli Bridge was 45 rupees, was increased to 50 rupees 6 months back and now to 55 rupees during this fare hike.
Worst is the case for small distances. Marathalli Bridge to Bagmane Tech Park in Doddanekundi was 10 rupees is now increased to 15 for a mere 2 kms. Same is the case from Kattriguppe to Devegowda Petrol Bunk.
Many cases autos are cheaper than Buses. It gives point to point connection with all the last mile. Our auto driver friends mostly say no or do not put meter and hence not utilizing this opportunity. Otherwise, BMTC had to run for its money.
Marathalli to Bagmane is 2
Marathalli to Bagmane is 2 stages, right? The increase in fare from Rs10 to Rs15 was done to remove a bug in the fare structure.
Vajra fare should be compared to car running cost, not 2-wheeler.
Bug in fare?
Looks like BMTC always has some bugs and hence increases the fare which cannot be justified. Compare Volvos with car - So much reduced frequency, so crowded - Cars are readily available on demand and no crowd and standing within the car although crowd on the road exists .
Inconvenience due to reduced frequency and very high fares makes is unworthy to travel nowadays in BMTC and especially Volvos. Chennai has so much affordable fare with such a good frequency.
BMTC is a business run with public money for outsourcing buses to private companies with a skelton service available for public during peak hours when it is mostly needed with a very high fare.
Vajra un-affordable unless doing single travel
So for a party of two elder citizens in my family, Vajra has stopped being the choice.
Easy decision. Convinced them to switch to Vajra few years ago. Back to using four wheels for two people.
Seems like Vajra pricing is for single travel - aka commuters. I think the pricing should be designed for "3 people in car" situation. Because I am suspecting there is fairly high level of car usage with two people in them (empirical observation at Marathahalli today, at 8.45 am - 6 out of 21 I counted)
The BMTC Volvos run on
The BMTC Volvos run on diesel. I think comparison against a diesel car will be appropriate. Might not make much sense even for a single traveler.
The monthly pass changes the dynamics considerably though, especially for long distances. Maybe BMTC wants to encourage this usage model, by shafting ticket purchasers. Similar case with charging a lot more for short distance travel. I dont understand why they cant have a constant Rs5/stage increment instead of haphazard ticket pricing. That said, the Volvo day pass at Rs100 is too good a deal, again at the expense of ticket travelers. The day pass needs to be priced at least Rs150, or maybe even Rs200.
Some targets that BMTC should look at to attract significant private vehicle owners
Volvo Fare <= Rs3/km (comparable to diesel car)
Regular Fare <= Rs1.5/km (comparable to petrol bike)
@OP, Chennai buses are only a fraction cheaper than Bangalore at the moment. Of course, it was significantly cheaper before they doubled the fare earlier this year (1st increase in 10 years). Service is a bit better in terms of conectivity. Bus quality has improved vastly in the past few years. MTC has ~100 Volvos in service, running on the IT routes and few long distance buses. MTC Volvo fares are comparable to Bangalore I think, for instance Koyambedu to Vijaynagar bus stand for Rs40, a distance of ~15km.