Shutting Down CMBT Is Cruel, It Needs To Continue As Chennai’s Primary Transit Hub

With the impending opening up of the Vandalur Kilambakkam Bus Terminus in southern Chennai, one fear among many of the city’s residents is not going away. The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) has proposed to shut down the Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus (CMBT) (also known as Puratchi Thalaivar Dr MGR Bus Terminus or MGR Koyambedu) permanently.

A little background

Broadway Bus Terminus. Photo Credit: Commercial Vehicles Magazine
Broadway Bus Terminus. Photo Credit: Commercial Vehicles Magazine

Opened in 2002, CMBT is a 37-acre bus station that serves as Chennai’s primary terminus for mofussil and long distance buses operated by various government agencies. It is owned by the CMDA and operated jointly by the six divisions of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC), namely TNSTC Villupuram, TNSTC Coimbatore, TNSTC Salem, TNSTC Kumbakonam, TNSTC Tirunelveli and TNSTC Madurai. The remaining two arms of the TNSTC, the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) and the State Express Transport Corporation (SETC) also play a role in the daily operations.

Prior to 2002, Chennai had no dedicated bus station for long-distance buses. Few SETC buses usually operated out of one half of the Broadway bus terminus. Other SETC and nearby states’ buses would operate out of a vacant plot of land opposite Chennai Fort railway station, which today houses the Government Dental College and Hospital while private buses would operate from the Gandhi-Irvin Bridge Road near Chennai Egmore railway station on the banks of the Cooum river.

In the late 1990s, the wholesale market located at Kothawal Chavadi was moved to a 295 acre plot in Koyambedu. After this, the entire operations of all government buses was shifted to the new bus terminus at CMBT. A separate 6.7 acre bus station was built across the road, adjacent to the whole market. Named the Chennai Contract Carriage Bus Terminus (CCCBT), it handles between 350 to 450 private buses and 5,000 passengers a day.

Till 2018, CMBT was the hub for all TNSTC and SETC buses, as well as buses operated by the RTCs of Puducherry (PRTC), Karnataka (KSRTC), Kerala (also KSRTC), Andhra Pradesh (APSRTC), and Telangana (TSRTC). In 2018, TNSTC buses bound for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, as well as APSRTC and TSRTC buses were shifted out to Madhavaram Mofussil Bus Terminus (MMBT).

Madhavaram has its problems

Madhavaram Mofussil Bus Terminus (MMBT). Photo Credits: BNR Infrastructure
Madhavaram Mofussil Bus Terminus (MMBT). Photo Credits: BNR Infrastructure

MMBT is an 8 acre, two-level bus terminus located at Madhavaram, adjacent to CMDA’s truck terminal, at the intersection of Grand Northern Trunk Road (GNT Road) that forms National Highway 16 (formerly NH5) and Inner Ring Road (IRR/State Highway 2). While it does feature two platforms for MTC buses, it otherwise lacks good connectivity. There are a few buses that connect it to CMBT and a lot of buses that connect it to Broadway or Vallalar Nagar (V Nagar/Mint Street). Passengers arriving from CMBT have to cross the road at the roundabout which witnesses heavy truck traffic. While MMBT and CMBT are located barely 10km apart, it can take up to 30-40 minutes to reach there.

Around 315 buses use the terminus daily, catering to an average of 12,000 passengers, with a higher number over the weekends. While TNSTC and APSRTC operate numerous services to Andhra Pradesh, TSRTC operates one Volvo service to Hyderabad. APSRTC operates several buses to Vijayawada. There are no buses to Visakhapatnam or Yanam and SETC doesn’t operate a single bus into either Telugu-speaking state. In fact the destination with the highest number of SETC routes apart from Chennai is Bangalore.

MMBT can handle 42 buses on the ground level and another 50 from the upper level. However, only government buses currently operate from MMBT while private buses continue to operate from CCCBT. This puts the former, especially APSRTC buses at a major disadvantage. Interestingly, some of TNSTC’s buses bound to Tirupati start from CMBT, which also gives it an unfair advantage over its Andhra Pradesh counterpart.

Connectivity to Madhavaram will eventually improve drastically. The under-construction lines 3 and 5 of the Chennai Metro both start at Madhavaram Milk Colony, located to the northeast of MMBT with Line 5 have a station outside MMBT. It will further continue on IRR and meet the Green Line at Koyambedu (not CMBT) and then at Alandur before meeting the MRTS at St Thomas Mount/Parangimalai. While the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) expects all three lines of Phase 2 to be completed by 2025, our friend TheMetroRailGuy estimates it to be completed no sooner than 2028.

Now coming to Vandalur Kilambakkam

While CMBT is currently Asia’s largest bus terminus at 37 acres, it will be soon dwarfed by the Vandalur Kilambakkam bus terminus that is spread across a whopping 88.5 acres. A timely reminder here that Delhi’s Millenium Park is not a bus station but a depot and therefore not Asia’s largest bus station.

With a total built-up area of 6.4 lakh square feet, it will feature 215 bus bays of which 130 will be for government buses and 85 will serve private buses. It will also have parking space for 300 buses, 275 cars and over 3,500 two-wheelers. An MTC terminal is being built adjacent to it, spread over 7.4 acres, nearly the area of MMBT. Interestingly the entire bus terminus lies within a protected and prohibited zone of the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) as it contains Megalith Burial Sites. The National Monument Authority (NMA) gave a green signal so long as no commercial development took place for 100m in the region except for greenery and the CMDA installed the required signage.

By road, the distance between CMBT and Kilambakkam is exactly 30km if one were to take IRR till Kathipara and then continue onto Grand Southern Trunk Road (GST Road). The distance is the same if one were to go to Maduravoyal and take the Chennai Bypass till Irumbuliyur and then proceed along GST Road. Outer Ring Road (ORR) terminates on GST Road just north of the bus station. The nearest railway stations are Vandalur and Urapakkam on the Southern Line of the suburban railway, both of which are at least 10 minutes away. As for Metro, the nearest station is Chennai International Airport, located 16km away. After a long tussle between the Highways Department and CMRL, an extension of the Blue Line from Airport to Kilambakkam is on the map. The former wanted to build an elevated corridor on the route and the metro’s height will be decided accordingly. However, this will take several years to reach fruition and till then there will be heavy traffic. CMRL has also initiated feasibility studies to extend Line 3 (Madhavaram Milk Colony to Siruseri) to Kilambakkam via Kelambakkam (Get ready for more confusion). However this is light years away since the depot is at Madhavaram and most of the line runs underground and without a depot connection, nothing can happen.

One theory that I have heard is that private players would lobby the government to let them continue operating at CCCBT. This would put all TNSTC services at an unfair disadvantage and would hurt the poorer sections of society the most. Further, GST Road is the most congested highway in Chennai since it acts as a gateway to the entire south from Coimbatore to Madurai to Trichy to Tirunelveli and Nagarcoil. The time saved by buses in exiting the city will be lost in reaching the terminus. Auto and cab fares will end up costing the same as an intercity luxury bus ticket while bus journeys with luggage in MTC buses would be unbearable.

The worst hit would be commuters towards the West: Those heading to Vellore, Bangalore, Hosur, Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri and even Salem, Erode and Coimbatore. Passengers living in North Chennai will also be affected badly. The bus journey from Bangalore which takes approximately six hours from Shantinagar to CMBT will go up by at least an hour and then there is the extra hour lost in getting to Chennai city itself.

Note: Bangalore-bound passengers won’t have to travel to Kilambakam at all. But it’s worse. Read the update section at the bottom of the post please.

The way ahead

The way ahead for CMBT isn’t all that difficult. It currently has connectivity to most parts of Chennai thru MTC buses, has a metro connection to both the major railheads (MGR Chennai Central and Chennai Egmore) and the airport.

Among the various proposals for the land, the most ridiculous one is to build a park. While I won’t deny that parks are important, the city is home to 632 parks as of 2019. The city’s per capita green cover stands at 8.5 square metres, just short of WHO recommendation of 9 square metres. In 2019, the began an ambitious plan to set up 67 new parks, mainly due to the destruction of close to one lakh trees in 2016 due to Cyclone Vardah.

CMBT can remain a bus terminus, albeit with some redevelopment. CMRL is in the process of redeveloping Broadway as a multi-storey bus terminal. MTC has been toying with this idea for the Thyagaraya Nagar (T Nagar) bus terminus for years now. CMBT could easily be redeveloped with a bus station at the ground level, parking and commercial operations above that. Bangalore has successfully done this. The Shantinagar bus depot was converted into a bus terminus with a Big Bazar and a parking lot atop the bus station back in the early 2000s. In fact, even the Kalasipalayam bus terminus, used mostly by private buses has been redeveloped in such a fashion. With bus and metro connectivity, the land will be premium, and give the CMDA a significant return on investment that can be used elsewhere.

There is no requirement for CMBT to shut down. Broadway didn’t shut down when CMBT opened up and in fact some SETC buses for Madurai still depart from Broadway. Many cities operate with multiple bus terminals. Mumbai has five outstation bus terminals while Pune has three. Bangalore has three and its central bus station, the Kempegowda Bus Station at Majestic was briefly downsized for metro construction. In the interim, certain buses were moved to Shantinagar and Mysore Road Satellite Bus Station at Bapujinagar. Today all three operate successfully.

But perhaps the most radical of all ideas came from a friend on Twitter, Krishnan. He tweeted that the site could be used for a future High Speed Rail terminal, and I could not agree any more. Given that the first HSR line to Chennai will connect it to Bangalore, it makes sense to keep the terminal somewhere near Poonamalle High Road/Grand Western Trunk Road (GWT Road). Given CMBT’s nature as the city’s pre-eminent transport hub, it makes perfect sense to make CMBT the HSR terminal as well. It will aid in quick commutes, fast transfers between different modes of transport, and will not hurt passengers’ wallets or watches.

Update

It’s 2024 and Kilambakkam (now nammed Kalaignar Centenary Bus Terminal or KCBT) is operational. While I haven’t been there, things aren’t smooth. MTC buses bound for KCBT are taking a minimum of an hour to reach there from Velachery. One good thing is 21G (Broadway to Vandalur Zoo) has been extended to KCBT, especially the AC bus but there are no AC buses from CMBT.

Private buses have refused to ply from KCBT and CMDA and the transport department has threatened to file criminal cases against them. Some buses were even forced to run empty from CMBT to KCBT. You can read more here. Southern Railways meanwhile has begun work on a new station which will take time to complete. On this note, do read: Urban Connectivity Chaos: People Managing Metro, Railway, Bus Stations Are Working In Silos by Srikanth Ramakrishnan on Swarajya.

For Bangalore and other West-bound passengers. It seems the powers that are have decided to make things worse for us. We will have to depart from another bus terminus, this time at Kuthambakkam near Thirumazhisai. This 25-acre bus terminus is touted to be completely air-conditioned and will feature a food court. The downside? It’s worse located than KCBT. It is approximately 9km from the Poonamalle junction and 2.5km from the highway. Getting there will obviously be a mess. It will feature 136 bus bays and CMDA is in the process of identifying access roads to be built. The Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (CUMTA) has asked for an extension of the metro to start work. This line, connecting Poonamalle too Light House is under construction and connects with the existing network at Vadapalani.

Let us pray that the administration does not miss this opportunity.

Featured Image: Chennai Mofussil Bus Station (Seshadri Sukumar/PIB Chennai)

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This Is What Asia’s Largest Bus Station Looks Like From Above

After a lengthy gap, I’ve managed to come across another delightful drone image, this time it is one something that I have been looking for over the last year and a half. Throughout the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, we have seen aerial drone shots of different bus stations, depots and even a metro depot.

This is an aerial view of Asia’s largest bus terminus. Now before you get confused, this is not the erstwhile Millenium Park depot from Delhi. This is the Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus (CMBT) officially known as the Puratchi Thalaivar Dr M. G. R Bus Terminus located at Koyambedu in Chennai. Spread over 37 acres, it serves as a common bus terminus for all outstation buses operated by the six Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporations (TNSTC) and the State Express Transport Corporation (SETC) while also serving buses to other states including the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) and Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC). Till 2018, it also served Andhra Pradesh and Telangana-buses and buses of the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Coporation (APSRTC) and Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC), which have since been shifted to the Madhavaram Mofussil Bus Terminus (MMBT) in the northern suburbs of the city. It is also a major terminal for buses operated by the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC), that is located at the front.

Take a look at this beautiful snap clicked by Beema with a DJI Mavic Air 2.

Apart from this, CMBT also houses a Metro station (officially the Puratchi Thalaivi Dr. J. Jayalalithaa CMBT Metro Station). The bus station was built in the early 2000s to decongest the earlier terminal located at Broadway near the Madras High Court. Behind the terminus is the Koyambedu Wholesale Market, the Chennai Contract Carriage Bus Terminus that caters to private outstation buses and the depot for the Green Line of the Chennai Metro.

That’s all from me this time folks. Do follow Beema on Instagram: @my_shutter_life.

Now you know what Asia’s largest bus terminus looks like from the air.

Featured Image: CMBT Drone View by Beema via Instagram.

If you intend to step out please wear a mask, carry sanitizer and maintain social distancing.

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Pune’s Electric Buses Make Their Way To Hubballi-Dharwad For BRTS Trials

For the last decade, Karnataka has been among the most proactive states in India when it came to acquiring new buses. The state was among the largest beneficiaries under the UPA government’s sham JnNURM and is continues to be so under the Modi sarkar’s FAME scheme for electric buses.

The second urban agglomeration in Karnataka, comprising the twin cities of Hubballi and Dharwad in the northern reaches of the state is the only city in the state with a functional bus rapid transit system (BRTS). The 22 km long HDBRTS connects the two cities and uses a fleet of 100 custom-built purple Chigari buses built by Volvo AB’s subsidiary UD Trucks. (I had posted a picture of a UD bus on trial with BMTC in my last post.)

On Thursday, 10 December, Kishan Rajput reporting for the Times of India tweeted out a picture of an Olectra eBuzz K9 belonging to the Pune Smart City Development Corporation Limited (PSCDCL) and operated by the PMPML with a notice that it was on trial with the Hubli Dharwad Company Limited.

While many cities make use of Olectra’s eBuzz series, PMPML’s fleet, consisting of both the the 9m long K7 and the 12m long K9 are all equipped with right-hand-side doors for use on a BRT system.

While I’m not sure about UD buses, Volvo AB sold its bus business in India to VE Commercial Vehicles, a joint venture between Volvo and Eicher. It seems that BYD and Olectra are here to stay. I’d like to see more Tata and Ashok Leyland buses though, the latter of which are running on the streets of Chennai.

Apart from this, Olectra will also supply 30 buses to Dehradun, 150 to Surat and another 25 to Silvassa. Let’s hope the EV fever reaches Hubli-Dharwad soon!

That’s all from me this time.

Featured image: Volvo UD Chigari Bus on the Hubli Dharwad BRTS (Hubli Dharwad Infra on Twitter)

Also; Did You Know CoEP Has A PG Diploma In Metro Rail Tech And Electric Mobility?

If you intend on stepping out, don’t forget the basics: A mask and sanitizer.

           

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KSRTC Rearranges Seating In Buses To Maintain Social Distancing

During to the ongoing Wuhan Virus pandemic, public transport is changing in many ways. While Delhi Metro and Mumbai Metro have put up stickers on alternating seats asking users to not sit there (read here and here respectively), BEST and other bus operators have earmarked specific seating patterns such as leaving the aisle seats empty and only occupying alternate rows.

In a rather radical move, the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation has decided to amend the seating arrangement in its buses. Reporting for ToI, Christin Mathew Philip states that buses are now only authorised to carry half the passengers that they could earlier. Accordingly, a Rajahamsa bus has been modified.

You can see images of the new arrangement below. Click on the images to see a larger version.

KSRTC has done away with their earlier 2×2 seating and has opted for a 1x1x1 pattern. Instead of two pairs of seats per row, the bus now features three independent seats per row, with its capacity coming down from 39 passengers to 29 passengers. The Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) too has reportedly done the same.

The future of transportation looks very bleak to me however. I wonder what will happen to air-conditioned buses, especially the Volvo and Scania fleet.

Featured Image: A KSRTC Rajahamsa built by Veera Vahana on an Eicher chassis heads to the departure bay to work a Bangalore-Davanagere-Harihar service. This bus is homed at Harihar Depot. Credits: Binai Sankar/Flickr, all rights reserved.

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The Propaganda of Transport

Propaganda is a very misused, overused and abused word today. Politicians use it all the time to attack each other. In such cases, we should take a closer look at the word Propaganda itself.

Merriam-Webster defines Propaganda as ideas or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a government, etc.

Of course, we can take the liberty of interpreting Propaganda as a more open nature of promoting oneself or ones interests to an audience.

The most well known example of Propaganda is the 1940 film The Eternal Jew, directed by Fritz Hippler and produced by the Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels under the Deutsche Film Gesellschaft banner. The film was nowhere near subtle, and portrayed Jews as Uncivilised, Parasitic and worse. However, times have changed and propaganda in its current form is very subtle, often using bias to have its way.

In the recent times, propaganda has managed to make its way into the Transport sector too. When we say Propaganda in the Transport sector, we do not refer to naming stations, airports, roads and bridges after people. Mumbai has one major railway station and its airport named after Chhatrapati Shivaji. Bangalore has its central bus station and airport named after Kempegowda. This is a global phenomenon. New York’s major airport is named after former President John F Kennedy while it’s secondary airport is named after the 99th Mayor Fiorello La Gaurdia.

The propaganda we look at is subtle, and in some cases, not so subtle.

A Nationalistic Bus?

A BMTC Atal Sarige on route AS-6.
A BMTC Atal Sarige on route AS-6. Image copyright Binai K Sankar.

At first glance, the Atal Sarige operated by the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation [BMTC] looks like its livery is is draping the bus with the National Flag. But. It’s wrong. If you take a second look, you’d notice that the colour scheme is White, Green and Saffron/Orange. The party colours of the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. Further, the name itself is a giveaway. Named after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of the BJP, the bus was meant to serve the poorest of the poor.

Note: If you’re Mumbai, the highest fare is on a bus with its route number starting with AS, and if you’re in Bangalore, it’d be the opposite.

And now, for a little Aesthetics.

A TSRTC Metro Luxury Volvo at Lingampally.
A TSRTC Metro Luxury Volvo at Lingampally. Image copyright LoveOfZ, CC-BY-SA 4.0 International, Wikimedia Commons.

Pink is known to be a very soothing colour. It is often used to calm inmates in prison.

However, the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation [TSRTC] bus above did not turn pink to soothe its commuters. Telangana State was formed in 2014, and the party that won a majority in its Assembly Elections was the Telangana Rashtra Samithi [TRS], whose party colour is Pink. Thus, everyone who sees the bus will remember the colour pink and every time there is a campaign by the TRS, people will be calm, because, Hey, Pink is a soothing colour.

Switching Colours

And now, for the most interesting, and perhaps most noteworthy form of Bus-based propaganda.

Welcome to Tamil Nadu, where all the various divisions of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation [TNSTC], the Metropolitan Transport Corporation [MTC] of Chennai and the State Express Transport Corporation [SETC] are like Chamelons. Remember the phrase “गिरगिट की तरह रंग बदलना” (Girgit Ke Tarah Rang Badalna)? That’s what TNSTC/SETC/MTC buses do. Change colours; Every time the government changes. It’s like an unwritten part of the party manifesto.

Here’s a picture of an MTC bus taken in April 2011 below. It’s blue in colour. Blue is also a soothing colour, although I fail to understand why anyone would want to say ‘Feeling Blue’ to refer to Sadness.

A blue coloured MTC Semi Low Floor bus on route number 21G.
A blue coloured MTC Semi Low Floor bus on route number 21G. Image copyright Vinoth Thambidurai/CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported/Wikimedia Commons.

This picture was taken in April 2011, a month before the All India Anna Dravida Munnethra Kazhagam [AIADMK] government won the elections. Colour combinations were aplenty across Tamil Nadu. Some buses bore different shades of blue and yellow, some were white with Red, Yellow and Orange stripes across them, there were many.

Now, they are all uniform. While, I did mention Fragmentation in an earlier post, it would be great if each city had its own identity in terms of colours. Here, Tamil Nadu is one single entity in terms of coloured buses.

All long distance buses, including all SETC buses are now Green in Colour. They’re light green in colour with dark green stripes, or dark green in colour with light green stripes, depending on how you may want to look at them. Local buses, including all MTC buses all sport the same Brown-Beige combination which makes it look like the bus wasn’t washed at all. Perhaps a plan to not wash the buses regularly.

Below, is one such repainted bus, taken in 2013, belonging to TNSTC Coimbatore.

A TNSTC CBE bus at Vadavalli in Coimbatore.
A TNSTC CBE bus at Vadavalli in Coimbatore. Image copyright Faheem9333/CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported/Wikimedia Commons.

See, what did I tell you? Where did this come from? Some people tell me that the colour has to do with what happened before this repainting. Barely three-four months before the buses got this brown colour, they had a different colour.

An MTC bus in the intermediate colour scheme.
An MTC bus in the intermediate colour scheme. Image: The Hindu

Notice the colours? Notice the photo of Jayalalithaa on the windscreen? I know it’s a bit difficult to see it, but can you see it. In the picture, Jaya is seen wearing a saree that is the same colour as the Maroon on the bus. Her complexion matches the beige on the bus. Tada! When the paint jobs were done, all buses sported a huge photo of the Chief Minister on the front windshield on the left hand side.

And now, finally …

Green Leafy Vegetables Buses

They say, greens are good for health. They say Green is a sign of Eco-Friendliness. But, the leaves here don’t exactly say that do they?

An MTC Small Bus [Mini Bus].
An MTC Small Bus [Mini Bus]. Image: The Hindu
 While MTC curiously chose to name these buses as ‘Small Bus’, not ‘Mini Bus’, they also decided to put a few leaves on it. No points for guessing why. The AIADMK’s Party symbol is: Yes, that’s right, Two Leaves! But, wait! You can see four leaves on that bus! Simple: 2+2=4. The more the merrier. Two more leaves is just going to reinforce things into the commuters head.

Now, notice something common among all these Transcos mentioned? They’re all State-level bodies, not Municipal ones. You’ll never see BEST, AMTS, or PMPML like this. Why? Decentralisation of transport management ensures that while Municipal Bodies have the wherewithal to run the Transco, they won’t have the time or resources to go behind such trivial stuff. They’ll have more important stuff such as banners, roads, naming of Chowks to work in their favour.

On an unrelated note: Searching for Purple Faeries on Google leads you to the Tag Purple Faeries. I call this, Purple Propaganda..

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Corrupt Babus from the Stone Age are Impeding Better Transport

Many ‘futurists’ and a significant number of urban local government officials and policymakers I’ve met and/or interacted with hold the following view – ‘Internet, faster communication and changing social attitudes will soon make large urban agglomerations i.e cities in the form of cities irrelevant. We will be participants in an era of small, compact cities with innovators, job creators and seekers moving to such cities from megacities to make their fortunes’.

This view is often represented as a fact in many conferences, seminars and ‘talks’ by organized by the intelligentsia which in turn has transformed the view into conventional wisdom. They are wrong. The internet or any other faster means of communication (except  teleporting perhaps’ will never be able to match  This view combined with the very Indian tendency to ‘equalize’ development of different regions has led to some perverse policy prescriptions but that is a matter for another day. In this post, I will discuss a little on why the ‘compact future city’ view is incorrect and touch upon what we need to improve transportation outcomes..

In his book- The Rise and Fall of Nations, Ruchir Sharma writes:

‘In recent years it became fashionable to argue that location no longer matters, because the internet makes it possible to provide services from anywhere. But physical goods still make up the bulk of global trade flows, and location still matters for companies that want to be close to their customers and suppliers.’

Some of you may argue that physical goods will not constitute a majority of trade flows in the near future where trade will mostly constitute IT based service sector transactions; and that’s when we will see intelligent people leaving cities along with their businesses for small towns. You would then be wrong. Again. Later in the book, Ruchir Sharma writes this:

‘Today the internet is making geography irrelevant neither for manufacturing industries nor for service industries. People still meet face to face in order to manage and build service companies that provide everything from internet search engines to cargo logistics, and new companies in these industries typically set up in the same town to tap the same expert talent pool. The result is the rise of cities with a cluster of companies and talent in a specific service niche.’
‘In South Korea, Busan continues to thrive as the nation’s leading port and as a regional hub for logistics service companies. In the Philippines, Manila has been rising for some time as as a major global provider of back office services, and now that business is spilling over to its satellite cities, including Quezon and Caloocan. Dubai continues to build on its dual role as a major port moving oil and other goods and as a service hub for the Middle East.’

To the above list, I would add- Bangalore continues to thrive as India’s leading education hub and as a hub for R&D, IT-BPO companies; Mumbai continues to thrive as the city whose professionals arrange financing for mega projects across India and Kolkata for producing intellectuals who fill our history textbooks with crap.

In short, cities will NOT become small. Businesses and intelligent people will NOT move to compact cities. Most of India’s megacities will keep getting bigger. (I’m not saying that there is no future for second cities and therefore we should ignore them. They are a very integral part of the modern economy and need to be accorded that status. That discussion is for another post). Our planners and urban administrators need to imbibe this very basic fact when they are managing our cities. In my opinion, amongst these planners and urban administrators, the ones that need to learn this lesson the most are – public transport officials.

A few months ago, St Srikanth of Depot (Srikanth) and I had a chance to interact with officials of BMRCL (Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited) and BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation). Almost every second conversation we had with a management level employee revealed their deep discomfort about private operated public transport facilities. Before these conversations, I admit to having hoped that public transport officials would recognize that government ownership of public transport infrastructure and the legal monopoly over these operations would increasingly lead to very bad transportation outcomes. Those hopes were dashed after the above mentioned conversation. I realized that these buggers are going to sit on their arses, wait for their retirement and meanwhile prevent and/or harass tech enabled transportation systems like Uber, Ola and ZipGo and oppose private entry into the business in the traditional forms.

Before continuing that rant, I will emphasise the need for an efficient public transportation system in every city. As mentioned before, every city is essentially a concentrated labor market. Businesses – low tech, high tech, service sector, manufacturing like to set themselves up in cities as these cities offer them access to a large pool of labor in short distance. This in combination with the fact that most of their suppliers and customers too do the same lead to something known as agglomeration benefits. All the above depends upon the efficiency of the transportation system and the density of urban living. The higher the efficiency of transportation networks and the density of urban living, the greater the agglomeration benefits and therefore higher incomes.

Let me illustrate this with an example from our National Capital Region. Say Srikanth decides to shift from Bengaluru [He is desperate to] to the wretched hellhole that is NCR and rents a place in Dharuhera (About 45kms from Gurugram). He is forced to rent here because he has a taste for luxury and but his bank account isn’t all that good enough to enable him to live in Gurugram. It takes about an hour to travel between Gurugram and Dharuhera as he travels through public transport, Uber and Ola aren’t available in Dharuhera and the nearest metro is HUDA city center which is about 40kms away.  What are the chances of him accepting a job paying ₹60k per month near Rajiv Chowk i.e. Connaught Place, New Delhi over a job paying ₹55k in Gurugram ? (It takes about 2.5 hrs to travel from Dharuhera to Connaught Place). Very low. He most probably will take the ₹55k job as it saves him 3 hours of travelling everyday. The company in Connaught Place will probably have to do with lower quality labor or increase the offer and thus incur higher labor cost.

Haryana Roadways is one of the worst state road transportation companies (SRTCs) with only about 100 buses in operation in Gurugram on about 15 routes. If one attempts to go via public transport from Dharuhera to Gurugram, he or she is forced to take the very rickety illegal buses as the Haryana Roadways buses on the route are very infrequent. The private ones that operate are harassed and sometimes seized if they use the Haryana Roadways logo to escape harassment. If private bus operators existed and the construction on the highway is completed, the route will take about half an hour. Srikanth might take up a job a little further away from Gurgaon say at Hauz Khas @ ₹58k.

Now, back to my rant on BMTC and BMRCL. The old geezers in BMTC and their parent PSU- KSRTC will NEVER give up their legal monopoly. The ones in BMRCL will take another 10 years to realize that Majestic and MG Road no longer are the locus of business activity in Bengaluru city and that the locus has shifted to suburbs like Whitefield and Sarjapur. If Karnataka and other states stop harassing tech based taxi and bus aggregators like Ola, Uber, ZipGo and ends the legal monopoly of SRTCs and their subsidiaries, the transportation outcomes in our cities will vastly improve and believe me and the years of Urban Economics research- the resultant increase in agglomeration benefits will make everyone richer off.

Why aren't those in power giving us better transport? Click To Tweet

This article was later republished on Swarajya.

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Strike it Off!

Strikes. Strikes by Auto Rickshaw drivers. Strikes by Bus Transport employees.
Strikes. An old Blackmail method used by the Communists and Socialists [the Left] that unfortunately works even today.

There are two common reasons why Transport related employees strike:

  • Competition from the Private Sector or others.
  • Demand for Hike in Wages.

Competition from others

Frequently seen in cities like Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi, both, employees of state run transcos, as well as auto/taxi drivers have often protested against others disturbing their Monopoly.

Recently, autos and taxis in Delhi went on a strike demanding that the government shut down app based aggregators such as Ola and Uber.

The irony of the situation is that such strikes force the public to turn to the aggregators, totally defeating the purpose of the strike. In cities like Mumbai and Pune, an auto or cab strike might affect businesses because both run by the meter. However, the use of non Kaali-Peeli cabs and auots is quite high in the city.  In Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, these strikes would be problematic, because the autos in the city rarely go by meter. In the long run, an Uber or Ola would cost lesser than an auto anywhere in Delhi.

Demand for Hike in Wages

The other reason for a strike, a more legitimate one, is the demand for a hike in wages.

Recently, employees of BMTC, KSRTC, NW/NE-KRTC in Karnataka went on a 3-day strike demanding a 35% hike in wages. Though the strike lasted only three days, it was declared as indefinite, and would have gone on had the Government of Karnataka not convinced the striking staff to accept a 10.5% hike. This strike made life miserable for people in Bangalore. Autos began fleecing commuters, something that they are experts at. To compound the issue, the Karnataka Government’s draconian 1950-era rules for Cabs and Aggregators just made life miserable. With some universities choosing to remain open, life looked very dystopian.

In Ocober 2015, BEST employees threatened to strike because the higher-ups held back their Diwali bonus. Common sense prevailed and the strike was called off.

This kind of strike is a bit legitimate, since employees do deserve an occasional pay hike.

Now, what can be done?

What can be done about a strike?

A Strike or Bandh can cripple a city, or in this case, a state. It kills productivity, and destroys the economy. Of course, there are some people who claim that Strikes and Bandhs are Good for the Environment.

Here are some methods to help limit strikes and their impacts on the society and its economy.

  1. Decentralisation
    A decentralised transport system limits the impact of a strike. A strike by BEST employees won’t affect transport in Nagpur. However a strike by BMTC will affect Mysore since BMTC is essentially a subsidiary of KSRTC.
  2. Salaries must be on par with inflation and the private sector. Bus drivers and conductors aren’t the ones with the easiest job in the world. Pay them what they’re worth.
  3. Take strict action against those striking. Just because employees belong to a government body, that doesn’t let them strike as and when they feel like.

 

 

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#YogaDay special: Yoga and its contribution to Public Transport

Today is International Yoga Day, something that was recognised by the United Nations last year.

Not many people are aware of the immense contributions that Yoga has had on Public Transport.

We often hear negative news about Staff and Employees of Transcos allegedly harassing commuters. Sometimes, we also hear about bus drivers moving down people. While, I don’t want to get into the specifics of all of this, let us look into the root cause of all of this.

All of them have a common cause: Stress.
A bus driver and conductors job is most certainly not the easiest task in the world. It requires a lot of skill and patience. Drivers have to put up with traffic jams, negligent and rash drivers, bad roads, and also passengers who don’t board/disembark through proper doorways or at specific bus stops. This adds to a lot of stress.
A conductor has to deal with people not giving change, rude passengers, passengers boarding/disembarking via the wrong pathways or at bus stops, people not moving to emptier sections of the bus, etc. This, again adds to the stress.
Now, multiply these instance by multiple passengers, number of trips, depot officials asking for fuel reports and fare collections, and you have a perfect recipe for a Nervous Breakdown.

To reduce the load on the staff, several Transcos decided to take up Employee Care measures by introducing Yoga, and Meditions sessions.

MTC has mandatory yoga sessions for staff involved in accidents. They also have sessions to prevent a stress overload, as well as sessions on effective communication and life skills. Similarly, KaSRTC, too has sent its staff to Yoga and rehabilitation to help reduce alcoholism among its staff members.

Others, such as BEST, MSRTC, and BMTC too have had sessions on meditation, anger management, and relaxation to keep staff at ease during long working schedules in order to help reduce stress levels and increase productivity.

Yoga is something we should be proud of. It is pretty much a Soft Power that originated in India. It was earlier laughed off by critics, but today is accepted as an international practice.

Hats off to the government for promoting Yoga as a stress-buster and natural relaxant. If people practiced Yoga on a regular basis, it would help everyone. A stress-free and relaxed person has the ability to keep calm in tense situations, and altercations may be avoided. If everyone is in such a state, imagine the transport scenario will also be one which people would look forward to.

#YogaDay Special: How Yoga is beneficial to Public Transport. Click To Tweet

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A sneak peak at BMTC’s and MCTD’s ITS

A lot has been said about Smart Cities and Smart Transport. Earlier, a post on Smart Bus Stops made an appearance as well. This article aims to cover the Intelligent Transport System [ITS] of two Southern Cities: The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation [BMTC] in Bengaluru and the Mysore City Transport Division of the KSRTC in Mysuru.

Bangalore

BMTC has recently rolled out their [ITS]. I managed to get a chance to talk to someone in the Office of the Chief Systems Manager at Shanthinagar today.

The ITS is being implemented by Trimax Infra, who earlier implemented the Electronic Ticketing System for BEST, RSRTC, and UPSRTC.

A handheld ticket machine used in BMTC buses in Bengaluru.
A handheld ticket machine used in BMTC buses in Bengaluru. Image copyright Srikanth Ramakrishnan, CC-BY-SA 4.0 available on the Wikimedia Commons.

Here is what I gathered. The ITS is being implemented in three parts:

  • Electronic Ticketing Machines: Trimax has deployed 10,000 Verifone ETMs to 39 depots of the BMTC and trained 7,000 of its drivers. The earlier used Quantum Aeon machines were junked in favour of the new ones which BMTC claims was to enable compatibility with RFID-smart cards. Real-time monitoring of ticket sales is possible, although not being used.
  • Tracking of Vehicles: Every bus has been fitted with a GPS-based tracker which can be tracked online, or via an app.
  • Public Information System: Under the PIS, displays have been installed at major bus stations to inform the public of which bus is arriving soon. This is similar to what several BEST bus stops on the Western Express Highway have, and what Coimbatore was experimenting with in the post on Smart Bus Stops.

All three components of the ITS are already in operation with the PIS displays installed only at select Bus Stations. BMTC has decided to go for an Open Data Policy, thereby allowing developers to build apps and interfaces with an API to access the data from the ITS.

For more details on the Open Data Policy of the BMTC, do read this post on DataMeet.

Smart Cards are not part of the ITS project. They are being done separately and are due to be rolled out in 3-6 months with all the Pass Issuing Centres being upgraded to issue Smart Cards.

A chat with a conductor later did explain the shortcomings with the ETMs, although Trimax does take quick action on faulty equipment.

BMTC's ITS: Electronic Ticketing and Vehicle Tracking get a Boost! Click To Tweet

Mysore

The Mysore City Transport Department [MCTD] of the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation [KSRTC], also has an ITS in place, called the Mysore Intelligent TRAansport System, known as MITRA. MITRA was formally inaugurated in 2012 by the then Minister for Transport R Ashoka.

Among MITRA’s aims are:

  • Real-time monitoring and tracking of buses and help reduce road congestion and other transport issues.
  • ITS improves passenger safety, fleet efficiency, services and traffic situation through transmission of real time information.

According to the MITRA microsite, it’s components are:

  • Vehicle Tracking
  • Real Time Passenger Information System
  • Electronic Display Systems

Mysore was smart enough to implement it before the situation got out of hand and sought funds from the World Bank under GEF and JnNURM.

As part of MITRA, the MCTD recorded the pronunciation of every bus stop name, fitted buses with LED Displays, Speakers, set up display units at Bus Shelters, as well as trained its staff to handle the system. An app was also released less than a month ago for commuters to be able to get bus details as well as fare details on their phone.

KSRTC also ran a User Satisfaction Survey, which showed positive results. The entire results of the survey can be seen here.

While MITRA may not seem as fancy as BMTC’s ITS, it is most certainly benefiting commuters positively and helping promote Public Transport in Mysore. One hope that BEST learns a lesson from this, when restarting its own ITS.

Mysore's MITRA is certainly a game changer in Intelligent Transport! Click To Tweet

Both BMTC and MCTD built a huge control room with a server to handle the large volume of data. Data is crucial to any project that involves the common man, mainly for operational efficiency.

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[Photos] Depots of Luxury

Some bus depots are lucky. They house various kinds of buses, old, new, fancy, premium, luxury, you name it.

In this post, I’m going to talk about luxury buses [Branded as such] of two specific depots: The Parel Depot which comes under the Mumbai division of MSRTC and Depot No. 4 of KSRTC’s Bangalore division. And no, Depot #4 here is not the same depot where Bus no 8954 was stationed.

MSRTC

Featuring the standard bus that almost all STUs in India have, the Volvo B7R, MSRTC successfully runs these buses on the Dadar-Pune, Thane-Swargate, Pune-Nashik, Mumbai-Aurangabad and Pune-Aurangabad routes, mostly as a non-stop service without a conductor. Branded as the Shivneri- a 17th century fort located in Junnar, Pune, where Chhatrapati Shivaji was born, it briefly made an appearance on the Kandivali-BKC route as the Shivneri Corporate. They were given a minor overhaul in 2015 with LED displays displaying the route up front.

MSRTC's Shivneri Volvo.
MSRTC’s Shivneri Volvo. Image copyright Srikanth Ramakrishnan, CC-BY-SA 4.0 International, available on the Wikimedia Commons.

In 2015 MSRTC started running trials of Scania’s Metrolink series. At that point, KSRTC had already completed trials of the twin-rear-axled Scania MetroLink and was in talks to procure them. MSRTC finally inducted several single-rear-axled buses into its fleet under the Shivneri brand. They are mostly seen on the Dadar East to Pune Station route.

MSRTC Scania Shivneri
MSRTC’s Shivneri Scania. Image copyright Srikanth Ramakrishnan, CC-BY-SA 4.0 International, available on the Wikimedia Commons.

Now, when an STU has a Volvo B7R, natural progression is when it acquires a Volvo B9R. And thus, MSRTC brought out the Ashwamedh, named after the Ashvamedha horse sacrifice ritual of the Vedic times. If, it was indeed an Ashwamedh sacrifice, MSRTC would probably conquering territories under Ashwamedh routes from competition, be it private or another STU. The Ashwamedh has the same fare structure as the Shivneri and is offically still called Shivneri on the ticketing system.

MSRTC's Ashwamedh Volvo.
MSRTC’s Ashwamedh Volvo. Image copyright Srikanth Ramakrishnan, CC-BY-SA 4.0 International, available on the Wikimedia Commons.

Evidently someone at the MSRTC design department was a fan of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather and decided to stick a picture of a Horse’s Head on the side of the bus. This person was also a Nationalist and put the Tiranga on the side, thus making this an ideal bus on the Delhi-Lahore route, to capture and recapture territory.

Now, as competition to the most outrageous livery, MSRTC decided it go a step further. It had a single rear axle Scania, might as well go for a twin rear axle one as well right? And thus, the Scania Ashwamedh was born.

MSRTC's Ashwamedh Scania.
MSRTC’s Ashwamedh Scania. Image copyright Srikanth Ramakrishnan, CC-BY-SA 4.0 International, available on the Wikimedia Commons.

This was not only competition to the previous Ashwamedh, but also, to KSRTC’s buses. The Scania Ashwamedh was originally meant for the Mumbai Central – Swargate – Hyderabad route, but was ultimately extended to the Dadar-Pune Station and Dadar – Swargate routes.

KSRTC

KSRTC has been the pioneer of intercity Volvo buses for a long time. It operates long distance routes from Mangalore, Mysore and Bangalore to Chennai, Trivandrum, Shirdi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Pune.

The original Airavat, as KSRTC named their Volvo B7Rs, retains the same livery even today. Here is a picture of the Airvat, clicked in 2007.

KSRTC's Airavat Volvo.
KSRTC’s Airavat Volvo. Image copyright Girish, CC-BY-2.0 SA Generic, available on the Wikimedia Commons.

The Airavat refers to the Airavata, the mythical white elephant that carries the Hindu god Indra. The bus itself is white in colour, and well, one could very well argue that it looks like an elephant.

Natural progression resulted in KSRTC getting the Volvo B9R, named the Airavat Club Class, this was possibly what made MSRTC get the livery on their Ashwamedh Scanias.

KSRTC's Airavat Club Class Volvo.
KSRTC’s Airavat Club Class Volvo. Image copyright Srikanth Ramakrishnan, CC-BY-SA 4.0 International, available on the Wikimedia Commons.

This was followed by the Airavat Bliss and the Airavat Superia. Both featured an in-house pantry, with the Superia featured a Chemical Toilet.

Pictures of these two will make it here later. KSRTC has two low resolution pictures on its website.

Now, being the pioneer in luxury services, you can’t expect KSRTC to be behind the rest can you? No, thus, KSRTC became the first transco to get Scania MetroLink buses with a twin rear axle.

KSRTC's Airavat Diamond Class Scania.
KSRTC’s Airavat Diamond Class Scania. Image copyright Srikanth Ramakrishnan, CC-BY-SA 4.0 International, available on the Wikimedia Commons.

Nicknamed as the Airavat Diamond Class, it is currently KSRTC’s most premium service. Ticket prices are more or less on par with the Airavat Club Class.

The tagline on the side of both the Club Class and the Diamond Class says Sleep Like a Baby, and has a picture of a baby on a pram. Of course, it also features a teddy bear and a rubber ducky, so one is left scratching their heads wondering if it has a bath tub on the inside.

All said and done, I am a supporter of Capitalism and believe in Privatisation of certain services and Private Participation in essential services. However, I for one am not too enthused with Premium buses owned by Private Transport Companies for one simple reason: Bad maintenance. Private Transcos never maintain their buses well. One can observe Neeta Travels with either the Engine compartment open or missing its cover. Very few exceptions exist, such as Conti Travels or ABTX Travels, both based out of Coimbatore.

Have a look at some of the premium buses offered by MSRTC and KSRTC. Click To Tweet

Note: Shivneri Bus without AC =Hirkani. Airavat Bus without AC =Rajhamsa.

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