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Stratified BMTC service & Making profits with deficient service
Written By Vasanthkumar Mysoremath - 2 April, 2009
Bangalore BMTC Bus Complaint public transport
BMTC has of late adopted a highly stratified approach in discharging its social obligation in providing efficient service at economical rates to the commuters; its profits have soared because the most of the time the engines of the fully loaded or overloaded buses are switched off at most of the traffic hold ups - their failure and inefficiency in keeping up the running time and fulfilling the prescribed running schedules are open to examination and must be subjected to an indepth audit to reveal the anotomy of BMTC's profit making methods.
Ordinary Buses:
Most of the ordinary buses catering to the majority of the commuters are unkempt,
window glasses are either broken or dirty and untouchable with dried vomit sticking on the glass panels, on the floor and outside the windows,
floors are not swept and lots of dirt keeps circulating inside the bus endangering the health of commuters and creating allergic conditions,
drivers seat and his area of operation are despicable,
first aid box does not exist or if it exists, is either empty or god knows what is inside,
poor visibility of name boards, front board shows a destination and the back board shows some other destination,
name board does not have a proper light,
lighting inside the bus is very dim and we have seen conductor struggling to remove proper change from his bag or to make entries,
most of red board buses running on mofusil routes are old rickety buses that rattle and make horrible sounds,
they are withdrawn periodically to the workshop to get a fresh coat of paint over the peeling paint only in the interiors,
those who are sitting in the front seats have to breath the unhealthy hot air that escapes through the poorly fitted rickety covers of the engine bonnet,
the list could be long.
Pushpaks: They are an apology to the name; only difference between ordinary and pushpak is their color is different but seats are almost the same - torn and patched here and there. They also suffer from maladies -
Pushpak's 2+3 seating arrangement has no place for standing commuters, but most of them are run on busy routes to capacity and ordinary buses are drastically reduced - clever examples: trips to Bannerghatta National Park - it is either volvo or pushpaks or other semi-luxury type buses charging higher fares,
commuters are paying for maximum inconvenience and deficient service; one cannot be sure whether they will be able to keep up an appointment.
Heavy investments are being made to satisfy the higher strata of our stratified society; Volvos are still running to less than half their capacity and reports keep appearing that the daily loss from Volvos is reaching a peak.
Big 10 is the most stupid service ever introduced by a service provider in the social sector without proper planning and survey. These buses are supposed to cater to hi-end customers who have not even glanced at these ornamental toys provided to them at the cost of sweat and blood of the common commuter who is languishing to get back home as early as possible but there are no buses.
Enough is enough. Stop pampering the hi-end customers with Volvos etc., because they would prefer to travel in their fleet of cars even if it matters that they will be behind a Volvo to the same destination. It is a matter of egoism for these 'haves'. Given an opportunity, all of them blah, blah, blah on public platforms but does not bother to practice what they preach. Their vehicles are the guzzlers of most of the fuel and they are the culprits who emit maximum per capita CO2 and create carbon footprints of the highest order.
In the name of reducing vehicles on the road, achieving fuel economy, control of green house gases, climate change, global warming or global dimming, the common man is being put to maximum hardship with minimum services.
It is time for BMTC to go back to basics, look at the common man as their bread and butter earner, fulfil his needs and aspirations of efficient and economical travel, do not show off empty ornamental buses that makes you bleed, try to give maximum comfortable travel facilities to all without stratification between 'haves' and 'have nots'. Give him proper bus shelters with enough information system through LED boards, do not encourage, even if it is PPP, A/C bus shelters, instead, use the money to provide some drinking water facility etc. at bus stands.
I have a travelling experience of more than 50 years in BTS/BMTC and that is my qualification for this postmartem.
- Vasanthkumar Mysoremath, 9845950440
COMMENTS
silkboard - 4 April, 2009 - 13:02
... that I have been reading this with interest. May be we should create a separate thread like "BMTC - hard maths and stats" or something, because comments on this post seem more eye-opening that the original post itself.
asj - I am with you on one thing here - the goal should be to provide Volvo or super quality ride for everyone. How will this be doable is maths and business models. But if this is not feasible, multi-tiered service would attract all. From my preliminary observations, Volvo in Bangalore is taking car and bike users off the road, majority of Volvo riders were not BMTC customers earlier because of crowded and dirty perceptions.
Mumbai is not always the right benchmark or comparison for Bangalore. Some reasons:
- BEST has the advantage of working to feed and support the long-haul train services. BEST trying A/c buses is something I have not read a lot about, but majority works far from residence (avg trip distances are large). If I anyway have to get to a CR/WR station and sit packed in a train for 15-20 minutes, whats the point of 10 mins of A/c comfort in the bus?
- Bangalore is still small, so much so that its still possible to think and imagine BMTC to provide commute connectivity (periphery to CBD). BEST has always worked with CR/WR, and to CR/WR, Mumbai's island structure has been an advantage.
BTW, that city, with its so called "spirit" has brewed a breed that has, till recently, put up with traveling like worms in trains. That quality of PT, simply because it had no parallel, was taken off as the pride and lifeline of the city. Problems Bangalore faces today were all faced by Mumbai 15-20 years ago. I say this because I saw the city, its jams, its congestion and migrants during my Powai days. May be you loved those tight huddles and embraces in the trains, but I didn't. 4 years (of studies) in Mumbai, and I was sure that I don't want to continue there and didn't apply for a single job in Mumbai. But back then (20 years ago), our country was different, not all could afford private transport, and citizen's expectations were (carefully managed?) to be low.
Summary of my last "perceptive" paragraph is that Mumbai's perceived PT goods (75% of motorized transport by PT) has a big "lack of quality options" angle.
Some references from the Nov 2007 World Bank paper on Mumbai PT (will provide link later):
The average speed of buses on ordinary routes is 12 km/hr, but is 16 km/hr on limited
routes, with fewer stops. ... Heavy delays, especially on feeder routes to suburban railway stations, result in waiting times up to 30 minutes, and force many commuters to walk 1.5 to 2 km to their destinations (Shrivastava and Dhingra, 2006)
BEST buses ... revenues fall short of operating costs. The shortfall is made up in part from electricity revenues.7 In 2005-2006 fares would have had to be raised by 29.6% for BEST transport operations to break even..
Due to high demand, there is serious overcrowding in second-class compartments, with as many as 5,000 passengers traveling per 9-car train during peak rush hours.8 This can result in 14-16 standing passengers per square meter of floor space.
in 2005-2006 ... According to official figures, suburban rail operations posted a loss of Rs. 123.8 million, implying a subsidy of 1.2% of fares
What if the bus subsidy was removed - whats the "elasticity" like?
The elasticity of bus commuters with respect to the bus fare ranges from -0.36 to -0.32. This implies that removal of the bus subsidy (i.e., a 30% increase in fares) would reduce bus commuters by 10-11%. To which modes would these commuters switch? Most would switch to rail only; however, some would switch to walk only, and some would switch to a car or two-wheeler.
Anyway ASJ. Want to make it clear that I am not arguing with you here. Urban PT in India as a fascinating topic, and there is so much to share (I have read a lot recently) that typing stats and content here is a big function of time :)
Was public consulted..a la JNNURM..Volvo intro?
Vasanthkumar Mysoremath - 10 April, 2009 - 07:09
Invariably all public service oriented project proposals are taken up, keeping a 'class action' scenario. Class action refers to 'majority users need' and it is always a prerequisite for authorities concerned to elicite public opinion/popularity survey/ economic viability/replicability/sustainability and other parameters before spending their money.
No doubt, Research, trails, errors are a part of our living but prudency in public spending is a sacred duty of any authority authorised to spend such moneys from the consolidated fund of India. This kind of financial prudency has borne fruits through systematic planning and providing services to the majority users of any kind of infrastructure provided in the past several Five Year Plans.
No doubt 'change is the essence of life' but it should not be at the cost of rendering disservice to majority and service to minority, albeit at a cost. Result is - running empty/low occupancy Volvo buses (Rs.70 lakhs apiece) at the cost of providing reasonable transport service (Rs.15 lakhs apiece) to need based 3.8 million commuters. Other failures ..HOHO, Big10, Air-conditioned bus stop (albeit PPP) etc.
In addition, we find a lot of outsourcing is being resorted to by KSRTC/BMTC for introduction of technology based 'improvements' with GIS, GPRS, etc. Without being too cynical, it has to be pointed out that a bus will arrive at a bus stop only when it could come and the man at the bus stop can get in and reach his destination when the bus takes him home. This is the reality of the situation and the family of the commuter will be worried till he gets back home because they cannot track him with any kind of GIS/GPRS system.
My personal view is we travel in BMTC buses to reach destinations and not to enjoy travelling - some of us get even trampled, school children are crushed, women with babies get dangerously jolted, senior citizens with their meagre pension are getting nudged all over and are suffering silently and the list is long.
He feels the agony of the hit below his belt when the looks out of the overcrowded ordinary bus and finds an empty Volvo going to the same destination but procured out of the money contributed by himself and his fellow majority travellers in ordinary buses.
Stratified transport service to majority users is too glaring to be brushed aside as an isolated happening; what is most glaring is the experiment with providing comfort zones for a few. Volvos may be making a few bucks, of late, on certain routes but the cost involved in running, occupancy ratio, fuel consumption and its failure to achieve socio economic changes cannot be dismissed just like that.
P&L is not as simple as a news item
silkboard - 11 May, 2009 - 02:11
DH is publishing news, not analysis. Something is up at BMTC - internal wrangling perhaps, that we hear unnamed BMTC officials being quoted on figures etc.
There is no point arguing without real data here. Profit and Loss calculations are not as simple. You can't just compare capital expenditure of bus 1 vs bus 2, you need total cost of ownership, maintenance and insurance contracts. Operating expenses - need to see detailed data behind those. And nobody is even thinking of putting monetary value to pollution (some buses pollute less than others) and carbon credits BMTC could generate if it can prove that it is moving cars users to buses.
Whether VKMM sir would want to hear it or not, Volvo has attracted car users. Myself and 100 other Praja members here who have switched for daily on once-twice a week commute would sign up to that statement.
If one has to go by daily or monthly profit and loss statements (that newspapers are dishing out to us), then even Namma Metro would be seen in red for at least 30 years if not more.
BWSSB loses money as well, so do we ask them to stop supplying water to homes?
So please stop this. If you want to talk P&L, use this forum to provide stats and full picture. Starting with perceptions and criticism first, and then finding data to support them is more of the approach our media (esp electronic) takes today. Analysis = data, and then conclusions.
Come in the field please - let us get data from all aspects.
On Vajra - what we need to hear from BMTC is if they have a long term business plan - a guarantee that BMTC will rationalize/tweak and adjust the High end service plans so that they make business sense - run only on IT corridors, or club with Big10 (every 3rd or 4th Big10 equipment a Vajra) etc etc. From what we know, BMTC wants to work to tune its Vajra services.
Now, by saying all of above, am I putting myself forward as BMTC sympathizer? Neither yes, nor no - I don't care about BMTC. I care only about good bus services, and will pursue all routes that get me that. And we know that there are two possible routes - BMTC improving its operations, or BMTC looking to outsource more or privaize. Work to support both, why put all your eggs in just one basket?
A full Volvo bus - what do we make of it
asj - 3 April, 2009 - 14:37
No comparisons have been made with West per se (London got mentioned as an example - but it has nothing to do with culture, poverty levels............its simple maths, if I was a paid consultant I would do the donkey work to produce a pricing strucutre as simple as that of London). It all boils down to running a bus that makes profits (or one that evens out) - I have thought aloud here by asking why we can't have 70 people in a bus at Rs 5 instead of 35 at Rs 10 per ticket - simple. If majority in India are poor, I suspect majority (poor bus users who are not part of this online forum) will understand and agree with what I am trying to hint at.
Now our cities are growing in dimensions, populations, vehicle numbers........ Any new migrant (if Mumbai gets 10k per day, other cities will be getting a couple at least) first uses buses.....then after establishing self......moves to personal mode of transport.......by then more migrants arrive, they take to buses.........so we always have certain percentage using buses. There will be those that can never save enough to buy their own vehicle, the loyal bus users. If 800k in Delhi use Metro, every year the Metro has been operational, 200k vehicles have registered in Delhi.
Now its one thing to say, 12k per hour use Delhi BRT and another thing to compare it with how many used buses anyway on this corridor before BRT - this is true even in Pune, where 50% of all commuters along pilot BRT route were bus users anyway. The moot question is - can the Authorities demonstrate that there is a real shift on consistent basis from use of personal vehicles to buses?
So, here is what has happened (happy to be pointed in direction of data that proves otherwise). The loyal bus users with no option, its them who transfer to use of better buses like the Volvo's and AC buses - this takes its time, hence the lag.
How many who travel and have always used personal vehicles are using the Volvo day in day out simply because they are now available?
No car user in Mumbai gave up his car because AC buses became available. People like me used the AC bus, people who were using buses any way.
So in the name of modernisation, in the name of serving the elite, with hope of converting them to use of buses rather than their vehicles.............end result is that the loyal customer, the poor majority dig deeper in to their pockets.
No one is suggesting we subsidise a Volvo. I simply ask - if the running cost of HOHO is Rs 350 per route (as suggested) - why not use a model to serve the masses, the real bus users better - this is the very essence of this thread.
Many here have experimented with HOHO (and reported experiences) - but how many will use it daily, day in day out, year on year (like a typical bus user in Bangalore or 80% of Mumbai)? I suspect hardly any - but who will bail out these buses, who will them and spend more on tickets - the regular bus user.
Mr Vasantkumar has rightly quoted SB, I repeat it and rest my case - "Why can't our goal be to have all of Bengaluru, regardless of their class and creed, travel in nicer buses. Are you saying that Bangaloreans don't desrve comfortable bus rides?
Its easy to get lost in discussions about evolving India.............for goodness sake, 90% of middle class in Mumbai uses PT (highly educated people rub shoulders with the poorest) - what is exclusive about Bangalore or Pune middle classes?
ASJ
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