HOT TOPICS
SPOTLIGHT AGENCIES
Bus Transport - Which is the way ahead ?
Written By Naveen - 19 August, 2009
Bangalore BMTC Bus Volvo KSRTC Analysis Transportation public transport
Some of us feel justified in criticising BMTC /KSRTC for providing differential services. What I have been unable to understand is why only these two are being singled out for questioning when there are dozens of examples along the same lines just about everywhere.
In government (& private) hospitals, there are special wards & general wards. Even the best hospitals have a long wait-list for those that cannot afford immediate attendance. Why not target them too ? Railways have several different classes - what about them ? Every other public bus transport corpn in the country has deluxe & ordinary buses - many are already running expensive volvos, or will soon start them - what about all of them ?
I think it's just that we do not know about other state or city bus operators & their financials well enough to comment (most of them are deep in the red), & so, some of us are led to believe that operations by our state bus services are questionable. This is possibly fuelled by the fact that BMTC /KSRTC were the first ones in the country to start using volvos on a scale bigger than most others - I guess this is being seen as unfair to those that cannot afford them at this point.
I think one just needs to be patient. This is only a start - & as the economy improves, many more additions will be there to those that can afford these better services & perhaps some time in the future, volvos & such other low-floor buses will become quite common - just as they are in most cities abroad.
I believe that pursuing the use of better quality buses is the way ahead, though all might not be able to afford them immediately & there is a risk that they might end up losing some money in the interim. This risk might be worth taking as the sooner our bus operators start using better buses, the faster travel on such low floor buses will become more common & affordable to most, if not all.
COMMENTS
Naveen - 20 August, 2009 - 05:04
Pathy Sir,
We have discussed this quite a lot in the past, & recently, too. Anyway, I have the following observations with regard to your post/s :
1) Are you sure that ordinary buses are churining out profits ? There are many routes that are being run to fulfil social obligations. Residents from many remote areas demand buses for connectivity with Majestic, City market or Shivajinagar. BMTC, being the lone service provider, is meeting these obligations, though they may be losing money running such services. Hence, we have so many bus route nos. & also, low frequencies on many remote, red boards. This apart, BMTC's revenues are not merely from bus operations - they also have ad revenues & lease out properties, as with most such transport corporations worldwide since city transport revenues by themselves will never be able to meet expenses & overheads.
2) Please also read this comment for a calculation that I had attempted with pricing strategy for volvo buses.
3) Bi-furcation, or tri-furcation (black boards, red boards & higher fare services) may not be a good idea since co-ordination between the entities may be a serious obstacle as the same routes, or part of the routes also need to be serviced by different types of buses. With traffic pile-ups, we already have a situation where buses bunch together though departure times from start points are generally planned to result in separation. This problem will surely get worse & all types of users will be effected. In fact, buses belonging to the different companies might start competing with one another & race to bus stops, endangering road safety as well - this is common in Mangalore & Cochin - cities that have multiple small, private bus operators.
4) Re. introduction of privatized mini-buses, we have already seen the menace that these create on many of the routes. Licenses are obtained as contract carriages & mis-used by them to operate only on profitable sectors at peak times. The quality of mini-buses is also very poor as they do not spend in maintaining the fleet, other than the bare minimum to just keep them running. On the whole, private services are far worse than BMTC, as of now. Unless we see a breakthrough, or develop a model that succeeds in ensuring proper services from private parties, privatization is not desirable.
Vasanthkumar Mysoremath - 20 August, 2009 - 07:22
@ Naveen /Pathy Sirs,
We have the following thread still in the running about the singled out Volvos and ord buses stratified services ... and as you can see the latest media report is that
- 1000 buses are being inducted - 165 will be on road by the month end - we do not know how many of them will be Volvos/Ord buses details are available on the following old post.
One new news is that "about 20 Volvos are being added to Atal service for catering to the poorer and low middle class commuters".
- Let us wait for a reality check of this service on road. Or is it the dawning of a new era for a semblance of improved service?
- As I understand this new post is touching the question of stratified service in many walks of life of ordinary citizens and it needs to be discussed on a wider canvas with a touch of socialism at the top.
-Let it be made clear that we are not discussing communistic pattern of sharing the wealth in a society but we are discussing the joy of sharing or giving by the minority forbes list 'haves' to the majority BPL list 'have nots' governed by a socialistic democratic pattern of the society..
- Vasanth Myso0remath
Naveen - 20 August, 2009 - 07:34
As I had mentioned previously, it was only a matter of time before such services would be made available for everyone - the 20 volvos is a start & a small, but significant step in the right direction.
The way ahead is only toward improvement in the quality of buses for all, but one cannot obviously expect expensive buses to be made available for everyone right from the beginning, with claims that they are out of the profits made by ordinary commuters - this is merely an assumption, at best.
Surely, there is no need to condemn BMTC or KSRTC for 'stratification' from the word go. They will carry out their experiments & find optimum means to fund & run services that are needed & viable.
This is similar to new products being launched in the market - initially, they would be very expensive & out of reach for most, but with markets getting established, they would become affordable to many more.
Today, we are paying 35rs to go from HAL to KBS - in a few years, we may be paying only half of this - this is how things have evolved with various new offerings, & I don't think the volvos are any different.
Premium services for the have-nots
skumaras - 20 August, 2009 - 08:17
Naveen,
I completely agree with your assessment. There are many examples of products which were only within the reach of the rich initially but which eventually became available to a wider range of people.
Four-wheelers are now an anathema to many in Praja, but let’s just take the case of the Maruti 800 as an example. Back in the eighties, the Government of India could have been criticized for getting into an Industry pandering to the rich. But their entry into this segment did eventually help to make the cars accessible to a lot more people.
Similarly over a period of time these premium bus services will become available to a wider audience. To a certain extent it has started happening. Even within the Volvo service they have the IT sector fare as higher than the non it sector fare.
Chargeable Stages
IT Sector Fare
Non IT sector fare
1
10.00
5.00
2
10.00
8.00
3
15.00
10.00
4
15.00
13.00
5
25.00
13.00
6
25.00
15.00
It will be a while before these services become accessible to every one, but as we add more and more buses, we will eventually get there.
pathykv - 20 August, 2009 - 02:40
I already clarified that the opposition is not to use of better buses, but subsidising the losses from the raised fares of ordinary buses.
As suggested, let there be a bifurcation or separate corporation to run higher fare services.
Also there should be 'Mini Bus' services for Intra-Nagar feeder services run by another set up. Private operators should also be deployed for healthy competition as the BMTC cannot handle all types of services as a monopoly.
K.V.Pathy
PRAJA.IN COMMENT GUIDELINES
Posting Guidelines apply for comments as well. No foul language, hate mongering or personal attacks. If criticizing third person or an authority, you must be fact based, as constructive as possible, and use gentle words. Avoid going off-topic no matter how nice your comment is. Moderators reserve the right to either edit or simply delete comments that don't meet these guidelines. If you are nice enough to realize you violated the guidelines, please save Moderators some time by editing and fixing yourself. Thanks!