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Bellary Road Big 10

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Written By susanth - 13 March, 2009

Bangalore BMTC Bus Bellary Road Citizen Reports Big10 Transportation public transport

Information first, cribs later! I finally managed to decode the mystery named Bellary Road Big 10. This one operates between Shivajinagar bus stand and Yelahanka. The route as I understand right now is:
 
From Shivajinagar bus stand - Indian Express Circle - Cunningham Road - Millers Road - Jayamahal Road - TV Tower, Mekhri Circle - CBI - Hebbal - Bytarayanapura - Yelahanka NES
 
From Yelahanka NES - Byatarayanapura - Hebbal - CBI - Mekhri Circle - TV Tower - Nandidurg Road - Cantonment Rly Station - Indian Express - Minsk Square - Cubbon Road - Central Street - Shivajinagar bus stand
 
I have been waiting for this service for a while now and when it finally happened, I have more cribs than positives to talk about. BMTC once again proved that they can be the worst when it comes to implementing a great vision. Here are my observations:
 

  1. It doesn't overlap with the Kendra Saarige at all! Somehow BMTC doesn't understand the need for an integrated transport system. If I take a Big 10 from Yelahanka and my final destination is Richmond circle, I have to negotiate the crowded Shivajinagar area to get on to a Blue or Orange line. The whole vision of the HO-HOs and Big 10s was great and I am wondering why the people who came up with the vision were not involved when it came to implementation. If indeed they were involved, why were the details completely missed out? It doesn't take too much to come up with a route that integrates Ho-Ho and Big10. For example, if the Bellary Road Big10 goes straight from Minsk Square to Jewels De Paragon (instead of turning left on Cubbon Road) and turns left on MG road towards Anil Kumble Circle and takes another left on to Central Street to proceed towards Shivajinagar, it will end up integrating the Blue and Orange lines very well. It will hardly add a kilometer and a half to the distance. I am sure such tweaks can be made to other Big 10 routes to seamlessly integrate with the Ho-Hos. Otherwise we will see these buses running empty as nobody in their right minds would even think of trying it.
  2. There is absolutely no information anywhere on these services. I wanted to find out about the Bellary road Big 10 and it took sheer determination to finally succeed. I spotted a couple of these buses on Tuesday (10th March) morning while on my way to work. So I decided that I will try to get in one on my way back. Tried calling the BMTC helpline and got the message that the number doesn't exist. I left my office near UB City on Vittal Mallya road and got on a Blue line, checked with the crew, but they haven't even heard of such a thing. Since I remembered seeing Shivajinagar on the Big10 bus route board in the morning, I got down at the Cubbon Road - Central Street junction and walked to Shivajinagar bus stand. Whoever I asked around, didn't have a clue as to what a Big 10 is! I did a couple of back and forth trips between Cubbon Road and Shivajinagar bus stand and finally managed to spot one!
  3. I was expecting the fare to be in multiples of five. When I asked for a ticket from Shivajinagar to GKVK, the conductor came up with a fare of 12 rupees. In my broken Kannada I posed a question to him as to whether the fare is in multiples of 5. He took out a sheet and stared at it for nearly 10 minutes, flipped around, and finally said 12 rupees kodi saar. He gave me two tickets of 6 rupee denominations! Why was the conductor not trained on the fare structure? Why the hell was he carrying tickets of any denomination other than 5s? I understand that there was an exhaustive study done on fares and arrived at the pricing structure for Big10s. Does this mean that all the time, money, and effort spent in coming up with the fare structure was a mere exercise to waste public money?
  4. I can’t comment on the frequency of Big 10s. On one day I saw 2 of them back to back. The other day I waited in Shivajinagar bus stand close to half an hour and couldn’t get one.

All my excitement around using public transport as a commute mechanism has evaporated a lot faster than I imagined. It is taking sheer will power and tons of patience to continue to resist the temptation of getting behind the wheels again!

COMMENTS

More than busses

narayan82 - 13 March, 2009 - 05:19

I think, after all our decisions, its going to take much more than great busses to make this service happenn. We need more stakeholders (including the public) to pitch in.

Firstly, bus stations like Shivaji Nagar need a facelift. If not, then I dont think the BIG 10 needs to terminate there. In fact - you dont need a bus stand to terminate a bus. BIG 10 to Yelahanka could come to Cubbon road, and then turn back and head to Yelahanka.

I agree that if BIG 10s arent integrated closely with HOHO then the two services will never connect.

Again, I would like to see more participation from BDA/BBMP to get bus bays, dedicated lanes, sky walks, underpasses, road paintings done for these services. Else, I don't really see the busses alone doing the trick.

Narayan Gopalan
User Interaction Designer
Bangalore

awareness/flexibility

Arun - 13 March, 2009 - 05:29

Susanth,
 
May be you have missed this…you can either get down at Minsk or Cubbon Road, and cross over. HOHO moving towards Richmond comes on Cubbon Rd turns left towards JD’Paragon and then enters Kasthruba Road to move towards Richmond.
 
Am waiting for KR Road Big10, have seen Kengeri B10 though.
 
BMTC staff needs to be sensitized on this service and a campaign in the CBD should be taken up once all the B10s are operational.
 
Few more suggestions:

  • Introduction of smaller buses – on B10 and HOHO; these buses can also ply both ways on some prime one-ways (Residency, Richmond, St Marks, etc)
  • Peak hour and off-peak hour services

Integrated Transit

susanth - 13 March, 2009 - 06:01

Arun, When we talk about integrated transit, one should be able to catch a connection without crossing the road or walking a couple of blocks. I agree with you that if there is enough determination, once could travel on big10 and get on to Ho-Ho. What I wanted to mention was if there is a little bit of tweaks, BMTC can provide a seamless integration of these services. Hope it happens! -Susanth

Why not MBS of Big10 service??

Srivatsava - 13 March, 2009 - 06:15

    The BMTC has been running Metro Bus Service(MBS) routes for some time now. The idea of the MBS service was to run two routes on the same bus one after another. So, we had a 36B from Girinagar to Majestic clubbed with route 104 from Majestic to Sadashivanagar to form a MBS route. As a result, the bus doesnt have to stop and wait at Majestic bus station and this helps to avoid congestion at Majestic to a certain extent.

     The same principle can be applied to the Big10 service as well. Instead of the a Big10 service teminating near the CBD, we can make sure that the Big10 service travels along the Kendriya Sarige route in the CBD and move on to another Big10 route. So, we can have a bus running as a Big10 service from Tumkur Road to the CBD, travel along the Blue/Orange line of the KS, and then continue to move on to EC as a Hosur Road Big10.

     IMO, there should be no independant Big10 service terminating/starting from the CBD. Only the merged routes should be plied on. This will simplify the travel for people, by not having to change buses in between. Also, the frequency of buses on the KS lines will be (to a certain extent) augmented by the Big10 MBS buses plying on the same route, albeit not the complete distance.

Big 10 routes

 

          Looking at the map above, why cant we integrate the following Big10 services with one another??

a. Tumkur Road with EC or Bannergatta road.

b. Mysore Road with KR Puram  or Whitefield

c. Bellary Road with EC or Bannergatta road

 

-Srivatsava V
http://srivatsava-vajapeyam.blogspot.com

Re: Srivatsa

narayan82 - 13 March, 2009 - 06:28

I think it would make a big difference if we could get the BIG 10s integrated. And then, we could do away with the whole Kendriya Sarige routes. So the Big 10s themselves form a Kendriya Sarige Like service. Ticketing could be in Zones. Hence a central CBD zone pass shud be able to get you on any service within the zone.

The KS meanwhile can be used to cut across the CBD. So hence take u deeper in to the CBD. So if the busses (BIG 10s) went on Cubbon Road > Trinity Circle > Airport road/Richmond Road, then the KS could take you from any of these stops to MG ROAD, Brigade Road, St Marks road.

What BMTC really needs is a some scheme of time Management. The Yelli Iddira concept was a good one - I wish it was re-introduced maybe on the BIG 10s as a start!

Narayan Gopalan
User Interaction Designer
Bangalore

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