Need to decongest Bangalore's roads. In order to do this, it is essential that BMTC plays its role efficiently and professionally both in terms of operations and management. Efficient public transport is the key to decongest our roads and removing traffic blocks.
I am sure we all want BMTC to reorganize itself both in operations and Management. We all want BMTC to completely revamp its route scheduling and rationalized its routes, ultimately we all want to end the monopoly of BMTC for better public transportation options. In this march, it is very essential to know the true facts from BMTC before we embark on any future endeavors for better public transport system
Moving forward, couple of Praja members have taken upon another task of finding the facts and figures from our own Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC).
In coming days praja community members would be filing a set of RTI applications with BMTC to obtain information that includes:
- number of active fleet,
- number of fleet used for contract service,
- revenue earned from contract service,
- disruption caused to regular schedule etc.
This list is incomplete. We definitely need to ask more questions and we need more information than the above list.Therefore In this endeavor, I am calling upon the Praja community member to suggest us the list of relevant information that we should request from BMTC. Please post your suggested info items. We will collect all the suggested info items and accordingly draft the RTI applications. The response from BMTC could also lead to filing a PIL, if necessary.
We are also looking forward to volunteers who would like join this working group and assist us with the BMTC-RTi efforts. Those interested pls send a PM to me or Ritesh.
Syed
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Hi
Destination vs Direction oriented bus routes
some more stuff to ask
sun_n_moon, I think most of us like that hypothesis. We should ask for things that help us prove that BMTC is losing money and hurting Bangalore by not going for a redo of its routing scheme. Some more questions to ask possibly on the same lines:
Above could give us effective throughput of BMTC. Some more questions to understand the way they operate:
Now, one criticism of BMTC that is unwarranted is their driver's behavior on the roads. I think that given the cricumstances and chaos on our roads, BMTC drivers do a better job than the yellow plate club and the rash drivers amongst us. I would like to ask for:
Got to stop, am getting carried away now. BMTC should be readily giving most of these answers, we may not need an RTI. Rithesh, Syed - will speak with you offline to prepare a structured list of questions.
I wish some folks from Maharasthra/Mumbai could help this futher by asking these same questions to BEST. That will help us produce a nice stats based comparison of BEST vs BMTC.
Let us start summarizing what we want from BMTC
Well, let us start preparing a document what type of service we want from BMTC. There are so many things we want, we will put it together point by point.
1. Last mile connectivity - Major hurdle for public transport. Use of BMTC branded autos / Swaraj Mazdas or the likes(shared/exclusive), TTMC construction ASAP with park and ride facility to enable personalized last mile connectivity.
2. Routing - We are all saying that routing is the problem for BMTC since it still operates with 3 hubs. We developed a model with Narayan developing beautiful pictures with different TTMCs connected with each other. We still have to put a concrete model on what type of routing are we looking for.
3. BRT Corridors - Most of the buses are struck in traffic and we regularly see accidents of buses hitting 2 wheelers and claiming life. To improve the transit speed as well as safety reason, we need BRT. We all know that BRT was ill conceived in Delhi, but the same won the elections for Congress. It is just the reluctance which has to be overcome by BMTC.
4. Passenger Information Systems : I posted yesterday about a website developed by IIT Mumbai the buses one has to change in order to reach point A to point B. Such pages needs to be put in www.bmtcinfo.com.
Also, live information on current location of buses to be displayed in www.bmtcinfo.com just like the dimits page that I posted yesterday. This clubbed with YI tracking on the cellphone should give us the location of the buses exactly.
Please add on points 5 onwards. We will make a point by point comprehensive document so that in future if we meet BMTC again, we are bang on instead each member expressing different views at the meeting.
Vasanth, help us with this !
Vasanth,
Thanks for summarizing in a very orderly manner. You did very good job of categorizing our concerns. Could you pls help us with making a comprehensive list? Also pls list all the questions that are posted here under each category you have listed.
Syed
Add contract service operations to the list!
Vasanth,
Pls add the following to your list.
#5. BMTC's contract service to MICO, IT & many other industries, rallies etc.
Questions under this section:
Syed
my questions
Sun_moon avare'
Very relevant question. In fact, of the 1800 odd routes, I expect, almost 1000 would have just one trip a day, possibly catering to the local Corporator's daughter's school/ college commute needs.
My additional questions for the RTI list would be
1) Is there a mandate that the destination boards should be in Kannada only? If so, who has issued it?
2) Why are the destination boards displayed at the base of the front wind-screen (on almost 90% of the buses), and not in the designated space supposedly provided for it?
Muralidhar Rao
Murali Sir, Sakkat Questions Keli !
To add to Vasanth's list of categories
5. Something on bus stops. How many there are? What norms do they have for bus stops? What is the min-max distance between 2 bus stops?
6. Driver/conductor training - details of trainings conducted on safe driving, basic customer service (being polite to passengers, etc).
We might want to take the areas we live in and ask some specific questions around that. E.g. Jayanagar - not a single bus covers 11th Main Jayanagar - all of them come on 9th Main. No buses on East End Road. Hardly any buses go from Banashankari side onto Bannerghatta Road (entering Jayadeva) then to MICO and then to Shivajinagar. All take the 4th Block/Ashoka pillar.
Srivathsa
Drive safe. It is not just the car maker which can recall its product.
By the by I got this mail from GrahakShakthi, BMTC
Mr R Vasanth
I have gone through several suggestions, views and your interest, confidence in BMTC. I would like to suggest your name for cooption to the BMTC-Commuter Advisory & facilitation committee. You can visit www.bmtcinfo.com and view the objectives, constitution etc. If you are interested in contributing from the `ring side' and interacting with officials, you may send us a brief bio(profile) and we shall then get back to you after a decision.
Looking forward to your response.
With warm regards
Somasekhar V.K Managing Trustee: Grahak Shakti, Co-Chairperson: BMTC Commuter Advisory & facilitation Committee, Member: Commuter Comfort Task Force
POC project on TTMC concept to start with
I feel that we urgently need a POC t of TTMC with atleast one and with mini buses working as local routing shuttles. It would be nice if we could have directly communicated to our Transport Minister Mr. R Ashok. We still couldn't get an opportunity to meet him from Praja.
I think the MCTC bus station on the Mysore Road / Shanthinagar Bus Stand / Shivajinagar bus stand are one of the possible candidates. Shanthinagar would be ideal since most of BMTC officials stay near that and can monitor. They should start with local shuttles within Shanthinagar, Wilson Garden etc.
I replied back to Grahak BMTC Shakthi that there is a group of people (citizens/prajas) behind me, together we can brainstorm and give suggestions. Awaiting reply from BMTC to my mail.
I will summarize together the points put by everyone by next Wednesday. Our members can post until then. Let us start something on Jan 1st.
entire PRAJA on the Committee
Hi Vasanth
Did the 'BMTC-Commuter Advisory & facilitation committee' member get in touch with you after seeing the postings on PRAJA? Either way, you should perhaps request him to use PRAJA as his Committee's interaction platform with the public (even if only the comp-savvy lot). PRAJA members have already given a whole lot of suggestions. He could perhaps start by giving BMTC's responses to each of them.
This way, each of us gets on to the Committee (even if indirectly), thereby broadening the scope of the discussions.
Muralidhar Rao
Vasanth, Any update on BMTC RTI List?
Vasanth,
Few weeks back there was one action item that you had taken up to compile a list of information items that we would request from BMTC via RTI application(s). Could you pls expedite it?
Syed
Can we take this forward?
Prajagale,
It is time we take this action item forward. Can somebody consolidate the list of questions?
Syed