This is not a solution but an attempt to spark off a debate to create a solution
I have tried to work out a method to organize bus travel within Bangalore. The inspiration for this started from London’s Underground – which is based on the concept of zones and lines. I have illustrated my idea of how Bangalore can be divided. It is a combination of the “Spoke” and the “Zone” concept.
Firstly I have divided Bangalore into Zones. Each zone will have one TTMC. See Fig 1 (Click to see original)
Inter-Zone busses ply between the TTMCs of every zone. Each Zone is assigned an Alphabet (Zone A, Zone B...etc). The number of the Bus is prefixed as Zone (From): Zone (to): Route Number. See Figure 2 (Below). On the return journey From and To are switched.
Every TTMC is linked with Autos, Taxis, Park & Ride Scheme and also eventually in the same building as the Metro. TTMC’s are modern, Air Conditioned, have lounges, have food and beverage options, travel booking facilities and other such amenities. Importantly they have to be well maintained, clean and have a modern “mall” like look.
Now each TTMC has smaller busses that ply within the zone or Intra-Zone Busses. These busses originate at the TTMC and serve all bus tops within its area. Each TTMC is assigned a colour (or rather each zone is assigned a colour) – which is then the dominant colour of the Intra-Zone Bus. The Bus number is also pre-fixed with the Zone Letter (see figure 3 – below).
So if we zoom out, we see a linking somewhat similar to Figure 4. So the method of getting from A-B would be to use last mile connectivity or Intrazone busses to the TTMC.
This can be combined with BRTS. Inter-Zone busses can have dedicated lanes. Please note, Inter-Zone Busses Services are NOT non-stop. They serve many stops along the way. The only originate and terminate at TTMCs.
All zones and drawings are only indicative and not precise/actual/to scale
ಪ್ರತಿಕ್ರಿಯೆಗಳು
Idea looks intuitively appealing
Narayan,
Your idea looks intuitively appealing as you can get fewer routes and more frequency. You will have nC2 * 2 routes (to distinguish Up and Down routes to borrow an IR term) where n is the number of zones.
Let us say the average cycle time for a route is 2 hrs (including rest, etc). To maintain a frequency of 5 mins - you need 24 buses on a route. If you have 10 zones, you need 10*9*24 or about 2400-2500 buses. Tha balance could go for intra zone feeders and suburban services.
People will have to change buses but overall transit times could come down as overall waiting time could come down given better frequency.
You might want to superimpose the Metro network onto this as well as BMTC depots (maintenance). The latter is very important as the location cannot be changed as easily given real estate considerations.
The TTMCs need to be really well planned with parking for 5000 two wheelers, auto stands, etc.
Srivathsa
Drive safe. It is not just the car maker which can recall its product.
Nice thoughts : some more ideas.
On first look this looks very good. Some additional suggestions:
1) The Inter Zone (inter TTMC) connectivity can be aligned with the BRTs to gain maximum benifit, faster travel between the TTMCs.
2) The inter zone buses should be high capacity buses (double deckers ?) to make maximum use of the road space available.
3) It might be a good idea to have the inter-zone buses as point to point buses (no intermediate stops)
If planned rightly, one will have to make a maximum of two bus changes for any source to any destination.
http://clean-and-green.bl...
Something to add
Very nice!
-Shastri
Metro and BMTC
I think the metro is going to be the driving factor.If planned well then these TTMCs can be a joint venture between BMRCL and BMTC in building the stations. This will also bring down the cost burden on the 6000 crore project and at the same time provide the vital space required by BMTC to build this TTMC.
The Basement could be a Depot/Workshop, the Ground Floor for Inter and Intra Zone busses, 1st floor for Ticketing & Amenities and 2nd Floor for Metro. Maybe even a helipad on top!
Special servies can also exist. For example "BIAS" or say"ORRS" (Outer Ring Road Service.) Rural Bus services which are currently "Red Board" can also be a special service. these have seperate codes with seperate numbers.
I envision such boards at the Bustops to ease the wait...
User Interaction Designer
Bangalore
Luanch With Metro
User Interaction Designer
Bangalore
Route Finder
A simple vending machine can be devised at all bus stops/TTMCs which give the user a printout of the busses he needs to take to reach his destination. This can be linked to the GPS system giving hm preciser instructions. (See Figure Below)
User Interaction Designer
Bangalore
Excellent!
At the outset, I cannot help wonder whether you do Graphics for a living :) - very nice color balance and good choice of fonts.
Will read more and post...
nice thoughts
Hi Narayan,
Very well thought out plan for making the public transportation faster and accessible to people. I have a few additions to your well laid out ideas.
1. Inter zone buses should ply longer distances say min 15-20Kms.
2. Reduce the number of zones to say 6-8 and have very frequent buses which should have stops at every 2-3Kms.
3. Reducing the number of zones and having intermediate stops at distance of 2-3Kms would mean 5-6 stops for a long distance running buses would mean faster movement.
4. The feeder buses i.e the intra zone buses should be synchronized with the inter zone buses so that they reach these intermediate junctions 2-5 mins earlier than schedule of inter zone buses.
Inspite of all things mentioned above we(Govt, Private and Public partners) should make clear assesment of travel patterns of people. How many people are traveling at what times of day? How many people travel from one zone to another zone? How is the travel patterns increasing day by day?
If we are able to get these details, the next task would be to prepare a plan of how to manage the public transport.
Another point which i want to mention here which might seem to be totally out off topic but i feel its very much part of it is City traffic management system. We need to have a better traffic management system in place first. The traffic signals in the city are not sychronized at all. So we end up wasting time waiting for the green light at each and every intersection. If we can bring in a traffic management system that can improve travel to a certain extent it will be very helpful.
Hope to see all these in my lifetime :)
-Ravi
Narayan - Great Work !
Narayan - terrific job with the graphics !!
There are some issues though, as Srivathsa mentioned. I will revert later.
I can see you have put in a lot of effort - Congrats !
Good Job !
Narayan,
By putting images and pictures, you have made all of us to think and respond. Without pictures no amount of text explanation would do the justice. As the saying goes, A picture is worth a thousand words.
My first impression is that basically we are talking about rationalization of routes. You have my vote for this suggestion. This is very badly needed in Bangalore and other cities. Because our BMTC (rather old BTS)bus route network is based on the government Babu's plan implemented in 70's. Since then B'lore has grown in leaps and bounds. BMTC is also lucky that now it has top management who is ready to think and implement out of the box solutions.
Let me read your posts and the comments carefully before I post my reactions.
In any case, Narayan, Good Job.
Syed
awesome!
Connecting Zones
User Interaction Designer
Bangalore
CCTF: connecting zones
love the route finder
Re: Route Finder
Once the database is in place, programming it would not be too hard. After all this is the IT city. But if BMTC has a good CMS in place, this application would be very easy to create.
On a different note. Inter Zone busses and Special services like the BIA Service can have double decker busses. As shown below:![DoubleDecker](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3041/2536073201_3eefd3cee4_m.jpg)
User Interaction Designer
Bangalore
Neat! Making use of the digits?
Neat work Narayan. So the basic idea is, looking at the bus signboard, I would always know the general direction and destination. AH31 or AH102, how does it matter, they may take diff routes, but I will be sure to reach TTMC of zone H.
There are two usable things about the digits that can perhaps be used to make this further easy.
1) Number of them. Lesser digits could mean fewer stops. zero digits could be the inter-TTMC non-stops or BRTS buses. AH, AG, AC, like that, ashtay. AH5 is a little more stops, AH31 is a bit more, and AH102 is the push pull shuttle of sorts.
2) odds and evens. How about odd numbers -> east-west direction, even numbers -> north south direction. This would make a sort of matrix, but could be confusing for inter-zone routes, unless you enforce the odd/even thing strictly so that every FG route is even numbered and every FE route odd.
How about a suffix 'm' for any route that touches a Metro station. H21m, hmm. Makes it a bit too complicated.
Inside the city, there wont be that much space around Metro stations for integrated TTMCs, not needed either, as long as there are two biggish bus stops with multiple bays on either side of the station, and with frequent services touching them. On the outskirts, TTMCs co-located with Metro stations will help, and I think thats anyway the long term plan as per CTTP.
Wow..
TTMC Connectivity with Localities
Any locality will have one nearest TTMC at north, one nearest TTMC at south, east and west. So, a locality should be connected to 4 TTMCs.
For example, say I am in Avalahalli BDA Park. To travel to east, say Jayanagar, I will travel to GandhiBazaar TTMC and take a bus from there. To travel to West, say Vijaynagar, I will travel to MCTC satellite bus stand where I get frequent buses, to travel to South, say EC, I will travel to Chennammakere Depot TTMC.
I was thinking of buses entering TTMC from opposite lane. Either we should have TTMCs on both the lanes or have ramps to allow the bus to enter TTMC.
Hitech TTMCs - How will it be maintained by public?
Regarding the hitech TTMC with A/C and other hitech gadgets, yesterday, I was just standing at Nayandahalli Bus Stand to bring my mother home who took Bus from Mysore. I was waiting for 30 minutes and I was just watching the Nayandahalli Bus Stop. I had just read your article about hitech TTMCs before travelling there and was imagining people there in that hitech TTMC. Most of them were very badly cultured. Although BBMP constructed bus stop looks good with granite sitting benches,illuminated stops,people are badly cultured.People will be smoking beedies and a very bad habit of simply spitting, clearing their running noses etc. You see any bus stop, it is fully spoiled by these dirty things and it is very stinky. It is really a punishment to stand in Bus Stops.
I was not knowing how to address these kind of issues. Only way I found was to distinguish different section of people and give them seperate amenities, although it is not the righway - but what they do is not the right thing. But, even few hitech people very well dressed also have these bad habits. Once, when I was travelling in a Volvo to Mysore, a guy behind my seat who looked like a techie was putting legs over my seats top and his legs were touching my head. I had to tell him upfront. These things are the hinderances to promote public transport and a way to handle these things has to be found out.
People and Habits
User Interaction Designer
Bangalore
Also need circular routes?
We also will need circular routes on this system no? - something akin to the MBS buses that run on the Ring Roads. So this will be something like AAXXX, which indicated that the bus actually starts and terminates in the same TTMC and depending on which TTMC's it covers in the circular route, it can be further classified.
This also brings me to the next thought - I have seen buses running empty many times just because they have to return back to their home depots. Can we design an efficient distribution mechanism which automatically routes or guides buses to the requsite routes on a demand basis and also tells them which depot to take rest at, based on traffic patterns. Ofcourse, this will need GPS and a real-time feedback mechanism, but what are the other factors needed to be considered apart from the Software itself?
Where should be TTMC located?
I was just thinking of Banashankari TTMC. I am a resident of Banashankari. Most of the people in and around Kattriguppe,CMK Acchukattu, Vivekanandanagar, Girinagar, Hanumanthnagar, Thyagarajnagar,NR Colony,PB Nagar pass through Gandhibazaar while travelling to Majestic / Market / Shivajinagar.
On the other hand, say for travelling towards Silkboard and other places, we need another TTMC on the outer ring road. (A southbound TTMC).
I think we have to divide it further into subzones and have north TTMC, south TTMC, East TTMC and West TTMC for a zone or have zones much smaller in size.
BMTC TTMC /Zones & Routes
The old, traditional BMTC routes were mostly centered around the three hubs of KBS (KG Bus Stn – Majestic), KRM (KR Mkt) & SBS (Shivajinagar Bus Stn). A few special routes had also been started, like the services on ring road, etc, & now BIAL services.
As a result, routes were too many as it tried to connect all parts of the city directly with one or more of these hubs. This meant low frequency of trips & increased lead time & waiting for commuters.
The Commuter Comforts Task Force of BMTC, co-chaired by Mr.Murali had recommended grid routes (Parallel North-South & East-West Routes, as best possible, with increased frequency) to steer away from the traditional city-centers specific, diffuse nature of the old routes. Parts of the CCTF report had been posted on Praja earlier.
This was a welcome change, with a chance to increase connectivity, reduce lead times with more frequent services for people all around the city, & avoid the above three hubs & reduce crowding & congestion at these centers & around.
Many such routes are already in operation. However, I noticed that many of the blue buses were running with very few passengers, perhaps because the frequencies are still not enough & people are still to get used to the idea.
Narayan has proposed an approach to try to arrange routes that connect TTMCs as these TTMCs (Traffic & Transit Mgmnt Centres) are now becoming a reality, & I think it will be viable if we found routes connecting TTMCs in concentric rings, cut by several straight routes across. The bigger TTMCs would of course be the larger transit points with higher passenger levels & would need to be better connected – this is dependent on their locations, importance, etc.
Such a system might also support the existing grid routes, or grid routes might already be routed to pass through TTMC/s. Connectivity to the upcoming Metro stations would also have to be taken into consideration with any system or combination of systems.
Whatever the resultant system is, it must ensure that waiting times for passengers is minimal, implying increased & frequent services.
I request all to please come up with further suggestions & ideas.
Mr.Murali, can you also please comment, thanks.
Integrating Zone and Grid system
Narayan has done a good work in proposing very neat zonal system. Currently BMTC is experimenting (or is it already proven?) with the Grid system running buses along all 8 directions. Both have advantages and disadvantages. For Grid system, one has to know where to change a bus and wait for the transfer.
I think there is a possibility of integrating both the systems combining the advantages of both. In case all Zones are connected by buses as per the Grid system, then a commuter can easily transfer from one to another at one of the TTMC. Each TTMC will have multiple options of transfers with information displays making transfers easier and comfortable.
In addition to the 8 directions, there can be also circular routes along the major traffic corridors avoiding the traffic in the central areas.
The destination zone will anyway indicate the direction. Nevertheless, it will be better to somehow encode the direction using the colors. Nayayan had already mentioned use of colors for Zone. I would instead propose use of colors to indicate the direction on the number plate. We can choose 8 colors for straight routes and additional 4 colours for cicular routes from the color wheel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_wheel) . East can be Orange and other colours aligned appropriately.
Instead of sequential letters to name the Zones I think we can use the starting letters of the city areas as far as possible (J for Jayanagar, I for Indiranagar etc).
Oops, I suggested the same as what Naveen said in previous post!
I posted withought reading what Naveen had written. Anyway, I think this idea will work.
Sanjay
TTMC location
Narayan - Brilliant graphics, man! I notice you have based the numberings system partly on my CCTF recommendations.
TTMC's I would have thought were required where long distance buses start/ terminate their journey. They should ideally be located close to the junctions the outer ring road forms with the highways leading out of the city. As such, the location of the TTMC on KH road only serves the purpose of providing a large commercial space for BIG BAZAAR and nothing else. Even the location of the TTMC on the Mysore road is not satisfactory.
Rather than concentric rings Naveen has suggested, I would recommend Olympic rings, interlinking various residential areas, and these can be managed without TTMC's. Whatever, there isn't that kind of space in the city for TTMC's.
Muralidhar Rao
TTMCs - the 2 kinds
TTMC's can be split into 2 kinds.
User Interaction Designer
Bangalore
Space of TTMCs
We need better places to support transfers than road-side bus stops. These places need not be big TTMCs like Shanthinagar.
Instead of leasing spaces from TTMCs to Malls, we can actually take space from Malls for these mini-TTMCs. Just like the law for providing adequate car parking, we can ensure that each new Mall have one floor reserved for TTMCs. May be extra FSI can be granted for this. Malls owners should be happy as it will bring more customers for them.
Shouldn't each zone have a mini CBD with shopping, entertainment etc? THis mini-CBDs should have TTMC's in the basement.
Imagine basement of Forum Mall being a mini-TTMC!
Sanjay Chitnis
TTMC - Another avatar of bus stops !
Narayan,
You did great job by putting some sole into the discussion on rationlaization of BMTC services by adding the pictures.
You rightly focussed on rationalization of the existing routes, which infact i had touched upon in another threads.
Narayan, if we take the path you had suggested, it needs to ensure that:
TTMC's in malls
Sanjay - that's indeed a good suggestion. And, I had indeed talked to Forum Mall authorities to allow the Koramangala feeder services that I had conceived, and they were not averse to the idea. But, the government didn't grant me the licence, and the service remained still-born.
Muralidhar Rao
Number of buses needed - A formula to calculate
Here is a simple formula to calculate the number of buses needed for a desired frequency between two points. No complicated maths!!
Assume that it takes time 't' to travel from point A to point B, so for a bus to make to and fro trip, it takes 2t. But, bus cannot come back immediately after reaching destination. It has to get its passengers and wait for its slot which is equivalent to frequency. If 'f' is the frequency, then, it takes 2t+f. We should have a buffer time for allowing the driver saab to have chai/coffee. If we take the buffer time as 'b', then total turnaround time is 2t+f+b.
Number of buses needed is (2t+f+b)/f.
where t is the travel time in minutes, f is the frequency in minutes and b is the buffer time in minutes.
For example, to calculate the number of buses needed between Bangalore and Mysore non-stop service- Travel time is 3 hours, frequency is 15 minutes. I am assuming buffer time is 15 minutes. Formula comes to:
(2*180+15+15)/15 = 26.
Few Bus Routes Proposal for the New IT Hubs
I have few bus route suggestion for the New IT Hubs - EC,Koramangala,Whitefield and Bannerghatta Road from few main localities like Yelahanka, Yeshwantpur,Matthikere, Nagarbhavi Layout. Later on few more can be added and transport hubs can be identified. I have clubbed the routes so that few routes cover 2 IT hubs such as Koramangala and EC. These are localities known to me. Please keep on adding for the localities known to you all. With brainstorming, we will get to know what other routes are needed. Still lot of areas such as JP Nagar, Indiranagar etc.. needs to be covered to the new IT Hubs.
Few of the routes are longer, say Nagarbhavli Layout to ITPL via Ring Road, Bannerghatta Road etc, but, it provides connectivity from say Bannerghatta Road to ITPL on the shorter way. Later on we can add other alternatives for them by brainstorming with each of us.
To start with, we have to request for park and ride facility in Bus Depots on these routes. Also, direct routes should be given to attract passengers, otherwise if we ask them to change in 2 or 3 TTMCs, they will not opt for this mode. Once they get accustomed to Buses, then even if we introduce TTMCs with A/C lounges etc.., they will take the Bus. We see TTMC as the key, after having so many discussions since it can increase the frequency. Normal people without having our type of background of thinking in public transport perspective, will not be able to judge its need.
Few of the questions that needs to be asked to BMTC
1. Is BMTC looking for an alternative and economical airconditioned bus other than Volvo since the success of these buses depends upon the upper segment of the society who needs to be pulled out of their cars. Volvos are very expensive and the its full power cannot be fully utilized unless we go for BRTS. Also it is not fuel efficient with hardly 1.5 kms/litre. This increases the ticket cost and makes it comparable to other private modes of transport.
2. Is BMTC ready to take up for mini A/C buses such as mini Tata Globus buses or is it fixed with the current big buses.
3. Is BMTC ready to invest in the TTMC that we are proposing with A/C lounges etc.
4. To start with is BMTC ready to give park and ride facilities in the BMTC bus depots.
5. Can BMTC provide feeder buses from inner localities to TTMCs or how is it willing to operate?
More suggestions..
Narayan,
Indeed a brilliant work.. And so the suggestions from others..
I have been deliberating on the yopic for some time now, and these are my suggestions.
-Srivatsava V
http://praja.in/user/srivatsava
-Srivatsava V