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COMMENTS

Thanks to Manjari, Sudheendra and all those who made efforts to attend the meeting at BMTC. Seems to be a good meeting and good to hear that attendees got to put across their concerns and suggestions to BMTC. I am hoping that we should hear from BMTC soon on this.

I think the point about "Auto/Taxi to supplement BMTC" in the presentation needs clarification. One payment for door-to-door service will be big challenge given the Bus ticket and auto/taxi fares are not same and the difference is big. Any approach on these lines would not be viable and feasible. What is being suggested is that BMTC needs to

1. Support infrastructure for easy transfers From/To auto/taxis at Bus stations, major interchanges and at bus shelters wherever it is possible.
2. Infrastructure in terms of Auto/taxi stand within walkable range, clear signs and directions helps the 2 entities.
3. Parking Priority, lower parking rates for Auto/Taxi parking at TTMCs, Bus stations and all public parking spaces catering for interchange to BMTC/Metro.

Syed

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 Date: 28th August 2009

 Attended by: BMTC CTM(O) and other officials, praja members

 First we presented the PPT from praja

 A list of suggestion was handed over and a few topics were discussed in detail. like

1.) Point to point Service: BMTC is against this service as it is not viable but at the same time faces issue because everyone wants such a service for their convenience.

2.) Collaboration with Auto for last mile service: They have tried to make arrangement with Autos but it didnt take off because BMTC couldnt commit financial guarantee.

3.) We suggested that they should get routes reviewed by stakeholders: Their response was that there is a committee to do so which is called grahak shakti (comfort task force)

4.) There was a suggestion that we should get proper information from help desk: and their response was that once their new website is up, then the people taking helpdesk calls can use it to provide route information too.

5.)Feeder minibuses: they had experimented it in 2002-2003, they had bought 140 minibuses but they require too much money for maintenance. they are not robust and also staff cost is higher than vehicle.

Then there was a discussion as to how praja can help provide information about BMTC to concern public via road show and posts.

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The CTM(O) and other officials listened patiently. They agreed to my request for a time line for their response. Manjari and Mithila (BMTC) are to meet on Saturdays for follow up. Hope some thing will happen! K.V.Pathy

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TS, Nice to see your return. Welcome back.

The presentation was from Praja side. This was a total sum of all our discussions on BMTC topic. The real objective was to drive some hard points into BMTC officials to start thinking in terms of long term vision and plan. Only time will tell how far we have succeeded into it. Based on feedback from Praja team that attended the meeting, we have a long way to go. We should continue our engagement with BMTC and push for at least low hanging fruits like good helpful website, Punctuality, Shelters at proper locations and reasonably working customer service.

The route rationalization, last mile connectivity and long term plan are some difficult nuts to crack. But my optimism is that these can be done if mind and efforts are put in. It needs lot of external expert help. In that thinking, it would be nice if we could get hold of some experts in Public/Mass transportation planning domain. Now we need to go for Version 2.0 to show BMTC the real practical solutions they can make use of.

Give me a call. Lets discuss these in detail.

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Manjari,

Thanks for posting the presentation. BTW, how did the meeting go? Eagerly waiting for the meeting minutes.

Syed

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