[binaiks]

A look at the present state of affairs. A TMT Volvo with a poorly kept BEST Cerita. The Volvo was full, while the Cerita left without a single passenger.

[trek]

I think BEST fellows have still not learnt any lesson from the current situation they are in.

The reason I say so is recently I took their AC buses twice to work, both the times rain water was leaking inside and onto the windows side seats! Few of the light panels were hanging!

They feel that putting up posters requesting for people to use their buses is enough to regain their lost glory! They truly do not deserve any sort of patronage.

[Dieseltuned]

Originally Posted by binaiks

A look at the present state of affairs. A TMT Volvo with a poorly kept BEST Cerita. The Volvo was full, while the Cerita left without a single passenger.

Attachment 1395114

That's competition at its best.

This I think is taken outside Borivali Railway station East side, and you should really look at the expression on the faces of the BEST staffers when they see not a single soul is interested in getting into this Cerita contraptions.


Regards
Dieseltuned

[amtak]

Best needs to be innovative. They need to realize and understand that whatever they do, people will not come into Cerita buses simply because:

1. The fares are on the higher side (eg. Borivali to Thane route)
2. Competition has better vehicles
3. The competition charges less for the same journey than what BEST charges.

It is simply a matter of convenience for passengers. If I am the a passenger, I want to move around in a comfortable, fast vehicle. A volvo provides that. BEST Cerita buses are creepy, rattle a lot and not to forget in monsoon, leak terribly.

Think of NMMT/TMT as OLA/Uber who charge less for the same journey as compared to a rattly Auto rickshaw or cab.

[Dieseltuned]

Originally Posted by amtak

Think of NMMT/TMT as OLA/Uber who charge less for the same journey as compared to a rattly Auto rickshaw or cab.

The only difference is that OLA/uber makes money while TMT/NMMT bleeds money, our money the tax payers money.

Regards
Dieseltuned

[AkMar]

Originally Posted by Dieseltuned

Exhorbitant prices and "POOR" buses did the BEST in. I was a daily commuter on one of the popular AC routes for more than 1 year and then suddenly out of the blue they shoot up the fares to 100 INR. I travel with my wife as we work in the same area and on calculation we found that even a petrol hatch would cost us atleast 20 - 30% less than the BEST AC bus. So ditched the bus and bought convinience and time.

Sad to see that the pride of Bombay has to beg for passangers.
It would be also interesting to know that "Instead of strengthening the BEST network, which person in the governments policy making department allowed TMT and NMMT buses to roll into BEST domain. i.e. Mumbai city and suburbs. "

Look at it this way - if BEST was entering territory of NMMT & TMT, it is fair to permit the other way round - TMT and NMMT entering BEST's area. They are doing quite well in some cases. NMMT has forced closure of BEST's non AC route from Dadar to Kalamboli. They operated better buses at lower fares and well managed frequency.

Yes, the fares have doomed AC bus services now. In addition to own cars, people also prefer to take shared (illegal) taxis wherever available.

Originally Posted by ghodlur

I would not agree to this view. Shutting down is not a solution, it means displacing lot many jobs and politically it would not happen. The only way forward is rework the whole strategy of the buses and the fares. Good quality Buses (of course with transparent tendering) with competitive fares will see customers come back to the services.

Originally Posted by amtak

Best needs to be innovative. They need to realize and understand that whatever they do, people will not come into Cerita buses simply because:

1. The fares are on the higher side (eg. Borivali to Thane route)
2. Competition has better vehicles
3. The competition charges less for the same journey than what BEST charges.

Bang on. Well said by both of you.

Originally Posted by Dieseltuned

The only difference is that OLA/uber makes money while TMT/NMMT bleeds money, our money the tax payers money.

NMMT/TMT may be bleeding money in general, but I am sure most of their AC routes are not bleeding money. There were reports of many AC routes of these undertaking running in profits. AC-65 in TMT's case & 121,123,125,105 in NMMT's case.

And now, another piece of expected news. Yet another AC route to be scrapped from tomorrow! AS-525 which operated from Dindoshi to L&T Mahape will be scrapped. I find this a weird decision as this route used to have decent patronage (by BEST's standards). Another instance of shoddy planning IMHO. With this, 10 more Kinglongs rendered idle. BEST's AC fleet utilization would be pathetic as of now. From the fleet 270-280 odd buses hardly 150-160 would be needed to operate the current AC schedule. I think they have even started cannibalizing few of the buses for spare parts. I say this because a particular bus has got rear bumper from another bus, and for the past couple of months they haven't even bothered to change the number painted on it!

I don't recollect whether I had posted this or not, but things had stooped this low in Dindoshi depot:



8 seats (4 pairs of 2 seats each) in this bus were missing, of which 6 missing seats are seen in this pic. Apart from this bus there were at least 15 more buses of this depot with varying number of seats missing. The buses were used in this condition for months. No one bothered to take corrective action.

After I saw this 8 seat missing bus, I wrote a stinker of an email to all possible email IDs of BEST I could get. Since then, seats were fitted in all buses, and I haven't seen a single bus with missing seats after that. But the fact that it took a very strongly worded email for them to take action on something very basic like seats is really sad, and reflects on the current attitude of BEST.

[ghodlur]

More bad news for the BEST. it seems the undertaking is losing close to 2.3 cr rupees daily. The recent attempts by BEST to woo the customers back to the red buses does not seem to be making any remarkable progress. The no of passengers have dipped by almost 50% and the recent fare hikes is not the contributing factor for the cause. A new initiative of "Bus Day" will be planned by BEST to encourage commuters to use only bus on that day apart form the usual advertising at the local hotspots such as railway stations, using social media sites etc. Now even the college volunteers are being roped in to advertise the bus services. Another unique initiative is the dedicated bus corridor at select routes.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/48337744.cms

[amtak]

Originally Posted by ghodlur

More bad news for the BEST. it seems the undertaking is losing close to 2.3 cr rupees daily.

They are responsible for their downfall. I have not seen a single new (AC or otherwise) bus being added to their fleet? What happened to the JNNURM buses/project? I see better fleet management at VVMT (They too have started running buses from Virar to Thane!).

The only undertaking doing worse than BEST would be MBMT

PS: I spotted a few Volvo's undergoing trials for KDMT; wonder what happened to the Volvo's that BEST were using in Colaba/AS 74?

[ghodlur]

More bad news piling up for the undertaking.

BEST would no longer be buying any new AC buses. They already have burnt their hand with the custom made King long buses and are not daring to repeat for the customized fleet. The new buses which will be bought will be non AC. The existing Kinglong buses would be made available on contract basis to private parties. But knowing the reputation, I doubt there would be any takers for the same.

http://www.freepressjournal.in/no-mo...or-mumbaikars/

[Dieseltuned]

Originally Posted by ghodlur

More bad news piling up for the undertaking.

BEST would no longer be buying any new AC buses. They already have burnt their hand with the custom made King long buses and are not daring to repeat for the customized fleet. The new buses which will be bought will be non AC. The existing Kinglong buses would be made available on contract basis to private parties. But knowing the reputation, I doubt there would be any takers for the same.

http://www.freepressjournal.in/no-mo...or-mumbaikars/

I would say this is good news atleast for short term.

BEST can buy non AC buses which are comparartively cheaper to buy and maintain as well. This would give them a good margin in the financials.

Operate good and sensible routes for a couple of years and then come up with AC routes when your profits shore up or losses become manageable.

Regards
Dieseltuned

[ghodlur]

Originally Posted by Dieseltuned

then come up with AC routes when your profits shore up or losses become manageable.

Agreed. But there are certain AC routes which are profitable and run packed. These can be still continued but only during peak periods. But definitely not with the King Long buses which are more prone to breakdowns and heavy maintenance.

Another avenue to stem the rising costs is a long term agreement for the fuel.

[Dieseltuned]

Originally Posted by ghodlur

Agreed. But there are certain AC routes which are profitable and run packed. These can be still continued but only during peak periods. But definitely not with the King Long buses which are more prone to breakdowns and heavy maintenance.

Another avenue to stem the rising costs is a long term agreement for the fuel.

AS440 - Borivali to Wadala Depot was one such route, even AS-525 to some extent, i don't know wanted prompted BEST to close down these routes ?

AS-440 apart from end to end travellers also had people hoping in for intermediate stops like Borivali-Goregaon-Andheri-Bandra and was immensely popular and ran full both ways in the peak hours.

Agreed that the kinglongs are a pain and a huge burden on the exchequer.

The BEST if i remember it correctly allowed the buses to be refuelled at private petrol pumps, did this decison also strain their finances ? as bulk buying of fuel or long term agreements would have surely helped them save some bucks.

Regards
Dieseltuned

[AkMar]

Originally Posted by amtak

PS: I spotted a few Volvo's undergoing trials for KDMT; wonder what happened to the Volvo's that BEST were using in Colaba/AS 74?

The KDMT Volvos are doing fine on Kalyan/Dombivli - Vashi sector. They have good patronage. BEST's 6 Volvos too are still in service.

Originally Posted by ghodlur

More bad news piling up for the undertaking.

BEST would no longer be buying any new AC buses. They already have burnt their hand with the custom made King long buses and are not daring to repeat for the customized fleet. The new buses which will be bought will be non AC. The existing Kinglong buses would be made available on contract basis to private parties. But knowing the reputation, I doubt there would be any takers for the same.

Bad news for the commuters too. There is adequate demand for AC buses but the fools don't know how to operate them. Look at how they pass on the blame on commuters without even batting an eyelid, saying there is no demand. There was a time around 3-4 years ago when almost 90% of their AC routes had good patronage. They killed the routes with their own hands due to deteriorating condition of buses & ever increasing fares.

Originally Posted by Dieseltuned

The BEST if i remember it correctly allowed the buses to be refuelled at private petrol pumps, did this decison also strain their finances ? as bulk buying of fuel or long term agreements would have surely helped them save some bucks.

It was the other way round. Due to some reason, bulk purchased fuel had become more expensive than that available for retail at petrol pumps. Hence buses used pumps for refuelling. MSRTC too used to do the same in those days.

[AkMar]

Today is BEST's foundation day. BEST in its current form was founded on 7th August 1947. Hindustan Times has kicked off a 2 part series on BEST today. Screenshots of first part from HT epaper:


(Click on the image to open full size version)

Apart from this, BEST has decided to go for full body ads on their buses. Since the last week many AC as well as non AC buses have been seen sporting full body vinyl wraps. As of now these vinyl wraps have contact details of the ad agency which will handle the advertising. Hope there is no corruption involved in it & they get decent revenue from the ads.

[trek]

Originally Posted by AkMar

Bad news for the commuters too. There is adequate demand for AC buses but the fools don't know how to operate them. Look at how they pass on the blame on commuters without even batting an eyelid, saying there is no demand. There was a time around 3-4 years ago when almost 90% of their AC routes had good patronage. They killed the routes with their own hands due to deteriorating condition of buses & ever increasing fares.

+1 to the above.

The BEST management must be kidding if they talk about lack of demand. A lot of people who are forced to drive to office in bumper to bumper traffic during peak hours would more than gladly shift over to AC buses IF there are reliable and efficient services provided by BEST.

Trust me, driving on the Western Express Highway is a big pain but people are forced to do so since there is no other reliable and comfortable mode of local transport available.

If BEST really wants to make money and get out of the mess, they need to be pro-active and introduce Volvo buses on important routes catering to the corporate work force.