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Public transport (BMTC) - what is needed to improve it? Your thoughts
Written By s_yajaman - 22 April, 2008
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One of the things that Bangalore lacks is a good integrated public transport system as of today. Namma Metro promises to improve things but is a few years away. Till then we depend on BMTC for public transport.
BMTC has changed a lot over the last 5-6 years. It (at least according to the website) operates a fleet of 5000 buses and carries about 30 lakh passengers a day (if one person makes 3 trips a day - it is 3 passengers). however, it still has a long way to go.
What in our opinion are the changes that BMTC needs to make to improve its services? Is competition in the form of (reputed) private players the answer? Do we need more Aircon buses to take people off bikes and cars and therefore speed up ordinary BMTC buses? A hundred of us can come up with a hundred different ideas. How well is your area served by BMTC? How far do you have to walk to catch a bus? How much time do you or someone you know have to wait? Has the Suvarna service helped you reach your office quicker? Maybe people who don't use BMTC take a few trips to actually experience the service.
If we can throw up ideas there are a few people among us that have the ears of BMTC and we can raise some of the feedback and suggested solutions/ideas to them. There is no guarantee that anything will get implemented, but if don't try then nothing will happen for sure.
If some ideas are really involved - then Tarle can open a new post for them.
Srivathsa
COMMENTS

Exactly with Koramangala same problem... & other observations
dvsquare - 3 February, 2011 - 07:59
Hi,
I stay in koramangala, and earlier had to go from near Maharaja hotel to Outer Ring Road. And I am pretty sure that they are a lots and lots of people who have to either go to Outer Ring Road and Hosur Road (E. city), but irony is that there is not at all any good connectivity from Maharaja hotel or Koramangala 1st block to either of the ORR or E. City. To go to ORR, one has to take an auto or some other bus to Agra Lake and then take some 500 volvo bus. Similarly, to go to E. CIty, one has to go to Madivala. And when we talk about encouraging people to come out of their private 4-wheelers and tell them to board a fully-crowded bus till Agra or Madivala, to avoid that, if we tell them to board an auto and pay more than double the meter price or otherwise fight with that auto-guy, who will be encouraged to go by public transport. Govt has to make its own things a little attractive for those people who want a little comfort, they just only see AC, but as well they see the behaviour of the buses on the road as well. Here are few observations -
(1) If you give them good AC buses, but no last mile connectivity or even connectivity to the major residential areas, the purpose is defeated.
(2) If you give them good AC buses, but no shelter at the bus-stops, I am not talking about AC shelters, I am just talking about the shelters enough to protect them from sun and rain, if not much clean, atleast free from unwanted garbage. Again no point of those buses.
(3) If even you build those shelters, not 1 per stop but many of them(illegal), and even after that buses don't stop on those stops, now where would those people go.
(4) Good buses, but sometimes, lack of planning, I see many times, no AC buses on the road, and sometimes, a lot of them going empty, and many a times, I have seen 2 buses of the same 500C number at the same signal, and if that is not enough, I see another one coming just in 1 minute.
(5) Even the metro going to come, will not be able to serve the ORR office people at all.
There are many more such observations, I just pointed a few of them above.

Question is Effectiveness and Efficiency
bharatm - 3 February, 2011 - 08:54
Hi,
As you have rightly pointed ( last comment) the issue is structure in which service is provided. With this structure there are always gaps and hence we need to think in different way to provide the service at least some tools/applications to make it easier. One most important thing is schedule.
Schedule is difficult to maintain as traffic is unpredictable(will need some IT systems and solvable issue). But can we stop 335E for standing idle at Marthahalli Signal ( for 5-10 mins, not sure of the reason). They start as soon as they see another one coming from behind. Or Can we stop overtaking at the bus stops when it not only take lot of effort to take over a standing bus at bus Stop, it also obstruct other traffic for 30 secs or so. At peak time these are most inefficient because they waste lot signal time( Green Light time). These are some operational issues.
We should measure frequencies on actuals.Since average frequency is just proof that we are running buses. We forgot that we are running buses for public Transport and they should be evenly ( in specific pattern) spread.
Based on my observations there are lot of simple ways which can help BMTC to improve their efficiencies. It will also improve the effectiveness.
Bharat

shashi kumar y - 3 February, 2011 - 13:29
@DVSQUARE & to all
Sir, the need of the hour is that BMTC needs first take all the area surveys and based upon the the observation(only realistic not imaginary or assumption), they need to deploy routes and the required no. of bus shelters. I have thought of a idea where with the help of COMPUTERIZATION & with using IT , we(praja) can certainly improve if we get backing from all the dept's(BMTC,BBMP,BDA,BTP).
Please don't quote that it is difficult to maintain trips with the traffic. It is the responsiblity of the BMTC to allot time(duration of travel) based on the reality.
Regards
Shashi

Vasanth - 3 February, 2011 - 16:37
Why not BMTC not looking into Mini A/C buses. They had it earlier with Swaraj Mazdas, but had few issues. Why don't they take up with Major operators like Volvo / Mercedes / Marcopolo.
These mini A/C buses should connect to as many localities as possible. Bangaloreans are not willing to change buses due to bad footpath conditions, fast moving and pedestrain uncaring vehicles, bad junctions etc.Interchanges needs to be reduced as much as possible.
Also some of the buses which are connected to Market / Shivajinagar from every locality can be routed to these IT cenres.

shashi kumar y - 3 February, 2011 - 04:23
Hi to all,
Well I agree with almost all of the comments posted regarding this article.
The problem is becoz of the old practice followed by the BMTC senior officials regarding new routes introduction and survey.
BMTC officials are still thinking or imaginig the situation as that was present in the late 1990's.
For example: Consider the JP Nagar (3rd,4th,5th,6th,7th) phase at present. This area is lot improved and lot of apartments have come up along with PG's. Most of the residents who are located here now are IT people.
But BMTC still think that the residents located here move towards so called MAJESTIC/MARKET/SHIVAJI NAGAR.
Not a single service ply to E-CITY or ITPL or for that matter to any other part of bangalore excepot the 3 location mentioned.
When I called them(BMTC) and asked to introduce buses to that sector, the reply was " Their is no passengers from that locality to those places".
The same applies with the Bannergatta road(sector) that is between Bilekkahalli to Gotteigere. Between this strech, we see there are many apartments and PG's but BMTC is still in its old practise of route analyse.
Ther is many example like this to qoute.
Is any one hearing??????????
What I personally feel is, it is waste of time for us in posting comments or blogs as long as it is not read or considered seriously by the concerned officials of which ever dept it be.
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