The BMTC began expansion of its BIG (Bangalore Integrated Grid) Bus Services with the launch of its Big Trunk services along Hosur Road.

The objective of the BIG Trunk Services is to rationalise routes to various destinations in the city and this is the second step to gradually shift from a destination-oriented bus service to a direction-oriented service.

BMTC has over 2,400 routes, which is significantly higher when compared to cities similar in size and bus ridership (Seoul has about 500 routes, London 700 routes and Shanghai has 1,000 routes).

According to statistics provided by the BMTC, although it has 6,500 buses, the sheer number of routes means that there are only about 2.6 buses per route, ultimately resulting in lower frequency of buses.

“The idea of the BIG Trunk Services and the feeder services that will begin soon is to increase the frequency of buses while rationalising the services. At present, the frequency of buses is about 2.5 hours at many villages near Electronics City, Chandapura or Attibele. By introducing trunk and feeder services, we hope to provide a frequency of about 30 minutes,” said Anjum Parvez, managing director, BMTC.

Hosur Road itself has over 65 routes. With the trunk and feeder services, this will be reduced by at least 54.4 per cent (about 30 routes). BMTC has already identified 11 other routes where trunk and feeder services will be introduced within a year. These include, Old Airport Road, Sarjapur Road, Bannerghatta Road, Kanakapura Road, Mysore Road, Magadi Road, Tumkur Road, Bellary Road, Hennur Road, Old Madras Road and Tannery Road.

The services were launched after extensive research on the pattern of travel along Hosur Road, done in collaboration with EMBARQ, a not-for-profit orginisation.

“This is a big expansion taking the well known BIG 10 system to its logical conclusion – making a full high frequency connective grid for the whole city. Other planned initiatives such as on-street transfer terminals, integrated fares and bus stop information will support this transition,” said Ashwin Prabhu, Principal-Associate, Urban Transport, EMBARQ India.

As many as 65 buses will operate along the trunk route initially and the city will eventually see about 110 buses on the trunk route (Hosur Road) and 110 mini-buses connecting the villages around the three nodal points- Electronics City, Chandapura and Attibele. The BMTC will be inviting tenders for the mini buses in the coming month.

2,500 More Buses for BMTC

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said that BMTC would be procuring more buses under JnNURM. “Bangalore is a growing city and there are many routes but not enough buses. BMTC will be procuring 2,500 buses for the city and 4,684 buses for NEKRTC, NWKRTC and KSRTC,” he said.

“We have asked for a total of `2,990 crore for various infrastructure projects to improve transport in the city. Of this, `267 crore is towards procurement of buses. We hope that the Centre will give at least 50 per cent of this amount,” he added.

Cameras on Buses

In an effort to combat sexual harassment on buses, BMTC has installed a camera on one of the buses. Cameras will be fitted to all the buses once its performance with the road condition, suitability of technology, capacity of the capture and direction of fitting are analysed.

Source-http://newindianexpress.com