Meeting with Mr Balachandran, Alchemy Urban Systems

Yesterday, IDS, Naveen and myself met with Mr B R Balachandran, an Urban design & planning specialist. Mr Balachandran has experience with Ahmadabad BRTS, and is a big backer of the BRT/BPS concepts.

We explained the Bus Priority System (BPS) lobbying project, and wanted to see if he would be willing to pitch in with his expertise. He is game, and will guide and support us in writing the demand report.

We need to rope in few more experts and enthusiasts to produce a solid and compelling BPS demand report. Experts like Mr Balachandran can help with the vision/introduction and a structure/skeleton for the report. Once the structure/skeleton is ready, we can divide up the parts for detailing.

There will be other requirements like base data (demand numbers on G1 route, GIS data for the entire route, and the, later as needed, some field work (like surveys, polls).

We will take things up as they come up. Next steps right now are:

1. Produce the report outline along with a clear introduction explaining the project
2. Gather base data (from BMTC, BBMP, BDA)

We are on to both the above tasks (#1 with Mr Balachandran's help, #2 via our contacts). Besides above concrete tasks:

• Online detailing and ideation for G1a/G1b/G1c segments can continue here on the website (via project wiki or blogs).
• And needless to say, each of us need to reach out to more and more people to build up support for the project

Let us keep moving and work to boost the bus throughput in Bengaluru !!