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Bus Breakdowns Plaguing BMTC
Written By sanjayv - 26 October, 2011
Bangalore BMTC Bus Analysis Maintenance Transportation public transport fleet
My 25 km one way daily commute for the past 10 months has meant covering a swathe of Bangalore's suburuban areas. A common observation during this time has been seeing 2-3 BMTC buses broken down every day. This includes buses across the spectrum. Ordinary buses ranging from old to the relatively new JNNURM ones, Janti Vahanas (trailer buses), Volvos, Marco Polos etc. I have even had the pleasure of traveling in BMTC buses which really did not have any business being out on the road. There was this one occassion where the bus I was in appeared to have one non-round wheel. It was traveling full tilt and as a passenger it felt as if road had unending speed bumps. Was that a safe trip? The other common sight is on the days I take the elevated expressway to eletronics city. It is very common to see one broken down bus every couple days. It is also common to see what I call non-aligned buses. The body of the bus will be so distorted that it will be pointed at an angle different from the direction of travel. Should such buses be on the road at all?
So here is my rough pseudo scientific computation using conservative estimates. Assuming my commuting trips as a "sampling" effort I was seeing 2 break downs during a period of 2 hours - my total commute time. I cover the south eastern section of the BMTC service area - so crudely call it 1/8th of the area. As a rough estimate, to translate my sampling time to the whole day, let us conservatively double the number - since my commute is close to the peak hours. So we are talking 32 breakdowns per day. For a year, that ends up being 11680 break downs - which means this is equivalent to buses in the BMTC fleet breaking down twice a year!
BMTC seems to attribute these breakdowns to not procuring news buses to follow its plan of scrapping 400 buses a year (see here). However, it seems that many of the relatively new buses are breaking down as well- from my observations as well as from anectodal evidence in the news - see here. The cause in all probability has also a lot to do with poor maintenance. In any organization, maintenance and spare parts are areas for (a) scrimping to save cost and/or (b) inflation and fictitious work a.k.a corrupt practices. These are however also leading to inconvenience to passengers, traffic jams on the road as well as risk to road safety (see here).
The BMTC appear to have a very diverse fleet - probably means a variety of sources to locate spare parts from, limited interchangeability and large inventory costs as well as training costs of service engineers. The roads and traffic in Bangalore are bound to strain any vehicle, not to mention the heavily used BMTC fleet. Maybe it is time for the corporation to look carefully at maintenance practices and look for solutions that can lead to a healthier, safer buses.
COMMENTS
srinidhi - 26 October, 2011 - 12:20
Yes as you mention BMTC busses frequently break down, causing lot of issues for not just the commuters in the bus but also to the other traffic on the road..mysore road faces very bad traiifc jams because of stalled busses..its no different on other roads..
As I have been mentionning manytimes on Praja..we will need tow trucks which can move these vehicles off the road so that it can clear the traffic jam at the earliest..
Unfortunately none among the authorities feel its important to have tow trucks and let the public suffer because of their ignorance!! They do this probably because they think tow trucks are a liability..infact they are not..they can be a revenue earner in a city which has so many vehicles..
All we need is tow trucks for all the four corners in blr..
Btw not sure who gives FC for BMTC busses which are old..think its a racket!
excellent observation, is on the rise
silkboard - 27 October, 2011 - 03:38
Well written Sanjay. Beginning around late last year, I too noticed that instances of Bus break down has been on the rise. Before July/Aug last year, I would see a broken down bus not more than 2 times a month (going by recollection). From then, to now, once or twice a week has been the norm. And my observation is coming from the same two routes - Whitefield to HAL, Whitefield to J P Nagar.
There must be a reason - reducing spend on Maintenance? Decision to keep old Buses longer because of equipment shortage? Or increase in good old corruption at depots?
Should probably ask BMTC for data. Or it may even be there in their annual reports. Vinay Sreenivasa recently sent over their annual reports, let me upload those somewhere here.
sanjay, numbers from BMTC website itself
silkboard - 31 October, 2011 - 03:19
There are some numbers on the BMTC website itself (http://www.bmtcinfo.com/site/BSAchievements.jsp). Going by the numbers mentioned, looks like July 2010 means Jan-to-July of year 2010, likewise for July 2011.
12. Number of breakdowns
- 2010-2011: only 1865 for the full year period (fiscal, I think March to March)
- Jan-July 2010: 624
- Jan-July 2011: 730
Sanjay, Even if you double 730, 1460 is far off from the statistical observation based number - 11680. Could it be that their definition of breakdown is different? Or our observations are wrong?
As per BMTC itself, breakdown rate has not increases
13. Number of breakdowns per 10000 km
- 2010-2011: 0.04
- Jan-July 2010: 0.04
- Jan-July 2011: 0.05
So, 2010 to 2011, there has only been a slight increase in breakdown rates.
However, notice another number from BMTC: No of vehicles scrapped.
4. Vehicles scrapped
- 2010-2011: 664
- Jan-July 2010: 8
- Jan-July 2011: 0
So they are probably doing better with older equipment? Keeping on older buses for longer period? Or maintaining them better to increase their "age"?
idontspam - 31 October, 2011 - 09:33
Here is a report on Breakdowns from last year. Per that article "A BMTC official from the KBS Area said the number can be as high as 20 in a single day for buses departing from his station. "
1865 breakdowns in a 6000 bus fleet is 31% of the fleet. Now this SMRT report around the same period from singapore claims a 1.5% breakdown rate per month which translates to 18% annualized. Which is half of BMTC number.
Correction: The metric in the report for SBS & SMRT only says the bus franchisee has kept up the SLA of 1.5% per month. It does not indicate the actual figures which may be far less than 18% per annum.
sanjayv - 26 October, 2011 - 07:13
I had the above post as four paragraphs. For some reason, it seems to be getting saved as a one paragraph glob! Happy Diwali.
Update: Went in and formatted the html. Now it is fixed. Why did I have to do all that?
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