[capnemo]

Today afternoon's rain seemed to be very heavy. I left office at EGL Domlur relatively early, around 2.45 pm and still took me almost 1 hr 15 min to reach home near Bellandur ORR.
Flooding was evident at the Bellandur lake bridge, and along the ORR service roads. Stay safe BHPians !

[airguitar]

Originally Posted by capnemo

Today afternoon's rain seemed to be very heavy. I left office at EGL Domlur relatively early, around 2.45 pm and still took me almost 1 hr 15 min to reach home near Bellandur ORR.
Flooding was evident at the Bellandur lake bridge, and along the ORR service roads. Stay safe BHPians !

Yes, most of ORR from Kadubisanahalli to Marathahalli and then the old airport road - Siddapura to Varthur kodi all showed quite a bit of flooding. I left at 330 amidst the rains and reached whitefield by around 4.05 PM. Thankfully the return traffic hadn't begun by then.

[arun_sharon]

After many years of commuting on the Kadubesanahalli flyover after Marthahali, I still can't understand the logic of the police's implementation of traffic on top of the flyover. Why are the vehicles asked to stop in the middle of the flyover and not at the entry points? Every day, this causes at least 15 minutes of additional delay.



I hope Traffic cops will change it and decongest the flyover

[jaganm]

The other day my son missed his school bus and since he had sufficient time, I thought I will save some trouble to myself and drop him at the bus stop (opp Wipro office on Sarjapur Road) and he takes a bus to Agara. We waited from 7:35 to 7:50 and there was not a single bus that came. Finally at 7:50 a couple of buses came but were so crowded that it was impossible for him to get on. So, I dropped him off by scooter and as expected, had a nightmare coming back on ORR.

I’m not a frequent user of BMTC and have no idea if it is normal, but to not have a bus on one of the main roads of the city for 20 minutes during peak hours seems really bad. Has the service deteriorated so much?

[bejoy]

Originally Posted by jaganm

I’m not a frequent user of BMTC and have no idea if it is normal, but to not have a bus on one of the main roads of the city for 20 minutes during peak hours seems really bad. Has the service deteriorated so much?

Your observation is correct. Though the schedule is evenly spaced out, the reality is different, owing to the unpredictable traffic. You would see a few buses coming one after another and there would be a lull period.

BTW, most buses have GPS tracking now and can be located from the App (Namma BMTC).

[am1m]

Originally Posted by jaganm

I’m not a frequent user of BMTC and have no idea if it is normal, but to not have a bus on one of the main roads of the city for 20 minutes during peak hours seems really bad.

BMTC is a law unto themselves. In the mornings, I get a bus easily to the Metro station and to Majestic. In the evenings there are hardly any buses. Shouldn't there be a comparable number of buses for people returning from work? I really don't know what happens to all the buses in the evenings. Drivers decide at random how long to wait at the depot. The same bus that I took yesterday would have vanished today, no guarantee it will be at the bus stop at the same time I got it yesterday.

(Yes, yes, a lot of people will jump in and say it's better than the bus service in several other cities, and that is true, but its operational efficiency is nowhere near what Bangalore traffic needs.)

The inefficient way BMTC operates and the thug behavior of the auto guys are big reasons Bangalore traffic has gotten so bad, people can't rely on last mile connectivity, even with a Metro coming up, so naturally will need a personal vehicle. Huge missed opportunity here.

[dass]

Originally Posted by am1m

In the evenings there are hardly any buses. Shouldn't there be a comparable number of buses for people returning from work? I really don't know what happens to all the buses in the evenings.

A lot of BMTC busses gets diverted to ferry company employees, both Govt. and Pvt and sometime even schools use BMTC busses for the students. This has been happening for ages now. Back in the day, companies like BEL, HAL, ITI had their own fleet of busses to ferry their employees, you hardly see them now and are replaced by BMTC and this kind of coincides with the peak office commute for a lot of people.

[capnemo]

Originally Posted by am1m

The inefficient way BMTC operates and the thug behavior of the auto guys are big reasons Bangalore traffic has gotten so bad, people can't rely on last mile connectivity, even with a Metro coming up, so naturally will need a personal vehicle. Huge missed opportunity here.

Absolutely true.

I used to commute by bus inspite of a car, in the last decade. The unpredictability of buses meant that one could wait 20 - 30 min just for a bus. After a point, you give up because the public transport doesn't quite measure up and resort to your car.

To force a change in behaviour enmasse, there's got to be - in dual measure - 1) an incentive, 2) and a commensurate deterrent or penalty. For example, an efficient & comfortable public transport and something like a heavy congestion tax for private vehicles would mean a lot of commuters naturally gravitate towards buses, autos, trains and metros. But all these will exist only in theory books, our city doesn't have that much administrative will.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by dass

A lot of BMTC busses gets diverted to ferry company employees, both Govt. and Pvt and sometime even schools use BMTC busses for the students. This has been happening for ages now. Back in the day, companies like BEL, HAL, ITI had their own fleet of busses to ferry their employees, you hardly see them now and are replaced by BMTC and this kind of coincides with the peak office commute for a lot of people.

I think thats reduced a lot these days. Most companies and tech parks have switched to private fleet companies for employee transport. I hardly see ORRCA BMTC buses or GE or such stuff. I guess the reason is the dilapidation in the quality of the Volvos and administrative issues. Thats why we see more and more swanky AC buses running on the ORR from different companies.

There are times when three 500CAs run back to back and other times when theres not a single bus for 30 mins. This is due to poor schedule of the buses and nothing else.

[ravradha]

Here are some stats on bangalore traffic

* Average daily congestion length of 1638 Kms in August 2024
* Vehicle speed of 18.6 kmph in August 2024 - which means on an average it takes one hour to cover 18.6 kms point to point (I fell it may take much more than hour)
* 23 lakhs private cars in Bangalore highest in India

I was wondering how does one calculate the first two? If the stats are scientifically calculated, then why not standardize and publish it regularly for top cities? That aside this raises a question of how do we as an individual handle this challenge?

* Use a small automatic car?
* Use rented auto/ small car?
* Why not own an auto? Is there a business case for high end air conditioned automatic auto?
* Use a scooter?

How do you handle this challenge?

Reference:

https://newskarnataka.com/karnataka/...8-km/29082024/

[hothatchaway]

Originally Posted by ravradha

*
* Why not own an auto? Is there a business case for high end air conditioned automatic auto?

All this is going to do if allowed is to present the autowallah thugs an excuse to beat up private citizens who dare to buy and use one

[am1m]

Originally Posted by dass

A lot of BMTC busses gets diverted to ferry company employees,...and this kind of coincides with the peak office commute for a lot of people.

That's a good point, makes sense.

But to the end user of BMTC, the effect is unfortunately the same - even if I can be sure of getting a bus in the morning, if I can't rely on the bus for last mile connectivity from the Metro station when I return in the evening, I'm going to use my own vehicle and add to the traffic on the road. Plus, my vehicle will be parked on the road the whole day near a metro station (since most don't have parking), unnecessarily taking up road space.

Ironically, I've seen the reverse, some private company minibus drivers ferry non-company employees in the evenings! I'm sure it's without the company's permission, but they make a tidy sum, filling in the gap left by BMTC.

I wish BMTC would think out of the box, get a fleet of mini buses just for Metro pick-up and drop for a radius of 3-4 km around each Metro station. Right now they use full-sized buses from some Metro stations, the disadvantage of that is they need to wait for the whole bus to fill up and the size makes it inconvenient on neighborhood narrow roads.

Frequent, reliable last mile-connectivity is the key.

[sachinayak]

Originally Posted by am1m

The inefficient way BMTC operates and the thug behavior of the auto guys are big reasons Bangalore traffic has gotten so bad, people can't rely on last mile connectivity, even with a Metro coming up, so naturally will need a personal vehicle. Huge missed opportunity here.

BMTC started a metro feeder service in HSR Layout (there are 2 routes and buses ply in both clockwise and anti-clockwise on each route) not just months but perhaps years before the Metro line here gets operational. They now renamed it from Metro Feeder to HSR Feeder, but this is exactly what we need across Bangalore. When this service started, buses would run empty, but slowly the usage has picked up. Many folks who stay in HSR (see a lot of students using this) but away from the ring road, utilize this service to get to ORR and then use their next mode of transport (office bus/cab, college bus/cab, BMTC Volvos and hopefully in a couple of years, the metro).

Unfortunately, BMTC runs the regular sized buses (instead of mini-bus) which sometimes creates some jams but that's just a minor irritant.

[airguitar]

Originally Posted by jaganm

I’m not a frequent user of BMTC and have no idea if it is normal, but to not have a bus on one of the main roads of the city for 20 minutes during peak hours seems really bad. Has the service deteriorated so much?

I used to be a BMTC user for a good 25 years. From my 8th grade to PreUniversity to Engineering to a good 13-14 years into my working career. Unpredictable traffic leading to unpredictable schedule, rains, horrendous crowding and waste of time waiting for the right route# eventually took toll on me.

One of the most common scene is at Prestige Tech Park : 50% of the volvos will go towards Hebbal. 50% towards ITPL. Folks heading towards Whitefield proper had nothing. The occasional Chakra 8 series would never stop at the bus stop. So we had to go to Kundalahalli Gate ( City Super Bazaar ) stop and again, there would be very few buses, most of them would turn towards AECS/ITPL. It would take another 30-40 mins to get a bus - most buses would go towards Varthur. Try getting a bus at 8.30PM from Kundalahalli Gate to Whitefield and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Beyond a point, you start feeling that given all the hard work you poured into life, you deserve some comfort, predictability and stressfree commute and so you switch to using personal cars knowing fully that you have given public transport a long rope before it failed you.

[G13BB]

Originally Posted by airguitar

Beyond a point, you start feeling that given all the hard work you poured into life, you deserve some comfort, predictability and stressfree commute and so you switch to using personal cars knowing fully that you have given public transport a long rope before it failed you.

Very very true! I travel to my office by metro, but the problem for me is, the nearest metro station is 4kms away from home. BMTC frequency is highly uncertain (sometimes there will be 3-4 buses back to back, sometimes there is nothing for 30 mins), but ALWAYS crowded (378, Kengeri to Electronic City). If I take BMTC, by the time I reach the metro station, I would need another bath! So I recently started parking my car in the Metro Parking instead of taking BMTC.

The cost of taking BMTC to Metro and then taking the Green line costs me 100rs per day ((10rs BMTC + 40rs Metro) X 2)

The cost of parking my car in the Metro parking and then taking the Green line costs me close to 250rs per day (Fuel + Parking + Metro)

I've given up on BMTC and I prefer to go by car!