On 16 November 2019, BEST launched the first of what would be a super successful venture that was replicated across the city. It launched the first AC minibus (them postvans, aka chhotu in some circles) without a conductor, on Route A-251 from Andheri Station (West) to Seven Bungalows Bus Station.
The route was a big hit, prompting BEST to launch a slew of similar routes in Andheri (West) before gradually expanding to Jogeshwari (West), Goregaon (East), Wadala (West), Dadar (East), Prabhadevi (West), Churchgate, Byculla (West), Mahalaksmi, Grant Road (West) and ultimately Goregaon (West). It also antagonised auto-rickshaws at Andheri because, well, it was cheap.
Shortly after that BEST launched A-249. It was identical to A-251 in its route, and had the same single stop at Four Bungalows. I even asked BEST what the difference was on Twitter, but got no response.
Then, on 6 December 2019, BEST announced that A-249 will have an additional stop at Dhake Colony while A-251 will only run between Seven Bungalows Bus Station [Saat Bangla] and Versova-Yari Road Bus Station [Vesave-Yari Marg].
This startled many. My transit group wondered why BEST couldn’t run A-251 directly from Versova-Yari Road to Andheri. I had my suspicions but they were finally confirmed today.
The distance between the two, by the direct route: Versova-Yari Road Bus Station -> Versova Village -> Seven Bungalows -> Four Bungalows -> Andheri Sports Complex -> Amboli Village -> Andheri Subway -> Andheri Station is 6.3km while in the reverse direction it is 5.8km.
Note: Despite what Google Maps says, JP Road from Navarang Cinema to SV Road has been a one-way towards the West for over two decades now. Even in 1998, I remember 251 (then a Double Decker) taking a left into Amboli.
This distance puts the route into the next stage bracket; i.e: тВ╣13.
Yesterday (11 February 2020), BEST announced a new route A-32 from Goregaon Station (West) to Aai Tuljabhavani Chowk/Lokhandwala Complex Junction (Infiniti Mall signal). I responded to them asking why not extend it to Monginis since that is such a big hub with four AC routes stopping there: A-210, A-235, A-260 and A-268. They responded as follows:
Seems like a fair point right?
That brings us to the first of my solutions.
BEST needs to add an additional AC route in this region. Say, A-250. Neither 250 nor A-250 exist at this point. That gives us four AC buses at Seven Bungalows: A-249, A-251, A-210 and this new route. A-249 can continue on the existing route that it has with two stops between Andheri and Seven Bungalows. The new route can service what A-251 currently does, by plying between Seven Bungalows and Versova Yari Road.
A-251 meanwhile should mirror the regular 251 and ply non-stop between Versova-Yari Road and Andheri Station with a single fare of тВ╣13. That’s it. The auto-fare on this route is in the range of тВ╣70-80 minimum, plus time taken due to traffic. It will be a huge hit.
The second solution, is a slightly more interesting one.
Remember BEST’s AC Volvo buses? I had blogged about them back in 2015. Read: The Curious Case Of BEST And Its AC Buses.
BEST had gotten 6 out of 50 buses as part of a deal with a company called Asian Concierge. While nobody knows why the remaining 44 never made it to BEST nor what happened to Asian Concierge (Tofler reports its last annual general meeting or AGM in September 2018 and last balance sheet as having been prepared in March 2018), those six buses are still parked at the Oshiwara Depot, according to Google Earth. You might want to click on the tweet to see the full image. The buses are the long red-topped ones with a white box, located towards the bottom left of the depot, north of the Oshiwara river.
This map is from 15 October 2019. Google Earth’s timeline view shows that between 2017 and 2019, these six buses were parked at various parts of the depot.
While we are uncertain as to why BEST is not using these buses, it can perhaps ply them as a regular AC bus AS-251 with a conductor from Andheri Station to Versova-Yari Road. Their only issue: They’re all single-door buses. The Andheri Lokhandwala Oshiwara Citizen’s Association even asked BEST why they were not in use but we got no reply.
Below is an image of what these buses look like. I had clicked this photo in 2015 outside the World Trade Centre in Cuffe Parade.
They ran on AS-4 from Oshiwara Depot to Backbay Depot and in between these runs, were used as the AC equivalent for BEST ‘s Fort Pheri fleet.
Let’s hope common sense strikes BEST and they something about this.
Also Read: Branded Bus Services.
This post is dedicated to my friend Yash who asked me this question in December and sent me on a quest to find an answer. Do follow Yash on Twitter!
Featured picture: BEST’s A-251 during its initial run in November 2019 at Andheri Station.
Thanks for the detailed insight in the issue. I hope they keep a fare of 15 from Andheri to Versova Tari road direct buses which will reduce hassles of change and a direct connectivity instead of alighting at Seven bungalows as of now.
I completely agree with this. It also highlights problems with the current fare structure, the тВ╣6 is problematic. Keep it in multiples of 5. тВ╣10 makes sense.