In a very interesting twist of events, a few private bus operators plying along the tech areas of Kolkata have decided to accept UPI payments due to an issue with spare change. One some routes, bus operators have to shell out commissions of up to 10 per cent to get change for larger amounts, leading to significant losses. Thus, they’re looking at digital payments to plug leakages, according to a Times of Indiareport dated 31 May 2025.
Several buses have started doing this, and based on the success rate, all 38 buses on the route may switch to digital payments. Most of the buses ply on the Barasat, Santragachi, Botanic Garden, Howrah Shibpur, route which serves passengers going to New Town.
The move was welcomed by a lot of people, including those from Kolkata Bus-O-Pedia, a Facebook group of busfans. Members of the group said that they had seen the system in use in Bengaluru on BMTC buses. They also cautioned bus owners and asked them to frame the QR code to prevent it from being manipulated.
Fun fact: A nearly identical article by the same author (Dwaiyapayan Ghosh) featuring similar quotes was published by the Times of India on 25 January 2023.
At this time, I am yet to ascertain whether WBTC buses accept digital payments or not although I know they have printed tickets.
Featured Image: Cartoon Man Scanning QR Code inside Bus (Le Chat/Mistral AI)
In an interesting move, the Indian Railways has decided to pilot a access control system at stations to both control crowding as well as reduce leakage of revenue. Many a transit fan has been advocating this for a while now, with some of us arguing that the best time to do this being the 2020 lockdown. However, in hindsight, that would have been difficult. However, it is not too late.
Indian Railways began work after learning from the Mahakumbh of 2025, a high-population event. In a press communique published via the Press Information Bureau in March, the IR announced various measures taken. The first measure taken was the creation of holding areas at various station to ensure that passengers were allowed to enter the platform only when the train arrived. Holding areas were created at several stations, with the main ones being Surat, Udhna, Patna and New Delhi for the festival season of 2024. Arrangements were repeated at nine stations in and around Prayagraj during the Mahakumbh with pilot projects being implemented at New Delhi, Anand Vihar, Varnasi, Ayodhya and Ghaziabad. Permanent holding areas will be implemented across 60 stations where complete access control would be implemented. As part of the access control measure, holders of confirmed tickets would be given direct access to platforms, while those holding waitlisted tickets or without tickets would be in the waiting area and all unauthorised entry points to the station would be sealed.
Two new footbridge standards – 12 metre (60 feet) and a 6 metre (40 feet) wide – have been designed which will be installed across all 60 stations. CCTV cameras will also be installed across the station with a war room to accommodate all officers being established to handle crowded situations. One very exciting development is the deployment of communication hardware including walkie-talkies.
The sale of tickets will also be regulated, especially during rush hours and the issue of platform tickets will be halted at such times, barring for those who are reaching the station to aid those who may require assistance.
The Railway Board has tasked the zones to identify railway stations to further establish electronic access control, similar to rapid transit systems. Western Railway has announced a list of 12 stations, of which three – Bandra Terminus, Andheri and Borivali – fall under the Mumbai division.
While most of what the Railways’ has said relates to long distance trains – made evident by the fact that the three stations in Mumbai that WR has chosen all have long-distance trains halting there – it is still indicative of what future plans are.
It is at this time that Indian Railways can consider integrating the NCMC with the network. Especially given that passengers will be restricted to the waiting area till the train arrives, an opportunity appears for it. Specific turnstiles at the station can be configured for the class of coach that will halt in front of it. I had written earlier about possible ways to integrate NCMC with the railways earlier, do read: Indian Railways Should Get On The NCMC Bandwagon.
Additionally, there are certain changes about the NCMC system itself that will be required for its optimal usage. A detailed article on this will follow soon.
Featured Image: What AI thinks Indian Railways with a turnstile looks like (Generated with Flux/Pikaso/Freepik)
What comes to your mind when someone says “The World’s ‘smallest’ car?”
Family Guy joke on Giant Samsung Phone being a Tiny Kia Car, hosted on BESTpedia
I’m sure many of you may have different ideas when you hear the word ‘smallest car’ and some of you may have seen the above scene from Family Guy but still.
In fact, there exists a car that is officially adjudged as the world’s smallest car –the Peel P50 – manufactured by the British (Manx, from the Isle of Man) Peel Engineering Company that was famous for its fibreglass boats in the 1950s through the 1970s when it folded.
The Peel P50 (left hand side, in blue) with its successor the Peel Trident (right hand side, in red). Image: Andrew Bone via Flickr/Wikimedia Commons
The Peel P50 was recognised in 2010 by the Guinness Book of World Records as the smallest production car ever made.
Interestingly, the British also made the Welbike, a portable, foldable single-seat motorcycle manufactured by the Excelsior Motor Company of Birmingham under the management of Station IX during World War II. The bike was designed to be folded into the standard CLE Cannister to be airdropped and then be used.
A Welbike inside the Canister at the Army Museum in Paris (Image: Van Der Meulen Christofle/Wikimedia Commons)
Anyway, coming back to the topic of small cars.
The P50, on record remains the smallest car. Now, for those of us who grew up in the early 2000s, we might have seen this on the third episode of the tenth series of Top Gear, hosted by Jeremy Clarkson. Clearly, for Clarkson, the P50 was too big, as evinced by the pilot episode of the nineteenth series, a mere six years later, when he built the P45, an even smaller car, which, from the looks of it was essentially looked like he was wearing an oversized raincoat while driving on a cart through London.
Jeremy Clarkshon driving the P45 (LG62 LYF)
The P45, built by Clarkson, and called the ‘birth of the future’, was compliant with most of the United Kingdom’s regulations relating to motor vehicles. Based on a quadricycle, it featured a 100-cc, two-stroke engine with a 1.7 litre petrol tank, which could be swapped out for a battery-powered motor, thus making it a hybrid, albeit restricting it to a speed of 3 miles/hour with the battery lasting just the hour. It also featured a reverse gear, something the P50 didn’t have.
Clarkson began by driving the P45 (the base model as he called it, with a “premium” feature being a hand-held wiper to clean the alleged windshield) on local roads before getting onto main roads and eventually the A3 road to reach London where he got so scared that he took the car with him on a bus for the rest of the journey. In London, he drove it into a mall, did some shopping, where he ran it on electric mode and then headed to the British Library to check how quiet the electric mode was, before running out of battery. He also drove it to the theatre to watch a show.
Clarkson also pitched the P45 to the investors of Dragon’s Den (what Shark Tank was known as before) where it ostensibly got rejected for being, well “impractical”.
You can watch Jeremy Clarkson’s adventures with the P45 on YouTube too:
Interestingly, Clarkson also has a show on Amazon Prime UK titled Clarkson’s Farm, which is a farming documentary.
What is the smallest car in India?
At the surface level, there are many answers to this question. Older people might answer Maruti 800, some may say Tata Nano or its electric variant, the Jayem Neo. Some might recall Chetan Maini’s Reva or its successor, the Mahindra E2O. A more recent answer is the MG Comet. Some may include quadricycles such as the Bajaj Qute or the Mahindra Atom.
The real answer here is something totally different. Built by Indore-based Wings EV, the Wings Robin is billed as India’s first microcar and is the same length as an average motorbike. It’s a two seater, with one seat behind the other, much like a two-seater aircraft, although the manufacturer claims it can support 2.5 people.
Here’s what the Robin looks like.
The Wings EV Robin during a test run. Photo via Wings EV on Youtube
(Fun fact: This test run was done at Adarsh Palm Retreat in Bangalore. I saw a test run there last month, but by the time I pulled out my phone, the car had sped away)
There are other names floating around too, if you know any, drop a message in the comments below.
In the recent past, one major change in how we commute is how ride-sharing platforms have changed their operations. Prior to the pandemic and lockdown, everything was online, digital and there was a lot of crying around. But now, the system has completely changed.
Let’s start with the most obvious change. You can no longer automatically pay for auto rides in most cities in India. You have to manually pay your driver at the end of the trip and more often than not, things don’t exactly go as per expected.
The story of protests against Uber and Ola over the contentious issue of commissions is not a new one. High commissions from the aggregators’ side have led to multiple instances of violence, with taxis being set on fire, offices and vandalised and even customers being harassed and abused. I’ve been at the receiving end of it myself, in 2017. You can read about it here: Bengaluru’s Uber, Ola Drivers’ Greed Has Led to Hooliganism on The Quint.
Then came Namma Yatri. And along with it, the guilt tripping. “WHY USE AN APP THAT CHARGES THIS MUCH COMMISSION WHEN YOU CAN USE AN APP THAT HAS ZERO COMMISSION?” is the standard argument all their ads have made. Remind me again who was involved in arson and violence? Not the commuter. Who gets guilt-tripped? The commuter. The person who pays for the service.
Now, NammaYatri is backed by JusPay, a payments processor. This is important because as a fintech firm, JusPay knows how much it costs to operate a ride-hailing service.
With aggregators moving away from the earlier model to basically acting as a connecting platform for drivers. In 2016, I had written that India is better off with Uber and Ola drivers being labelled as self-employed. You can read it here: India Is Better Off With Self-Employed Uber And Ola Drivers. In the article, I had argued that the ‘self-employed’ model of drivers was indeed the best model for cabdrivers as it gave them the flexibility to operate, which would be gone if they were to be classified as regular employees. My view has remained the same, albeit my stance on libertarianism has softened significantly, especially post the pandemic and consequent lockdowns. Remember I had once posted about a platform called ‘LibreTaxi’? Move Over Ola and Uber, LibreTaxi Is Here.My views on this have changed significantly.
Now, before I go into the main story, let me also drop another name here: ONDC and the Beckn protocol. The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is a Government of India-backed public technology initiative that was launched in 2021 to enable a level playing field for smaller players in the e-commerce field. It was meant to provide an open, inclusive system for retailers, shoppers, technology platforms and prevent cartelisation of the sector by Big Tech giants like Amazon, retail giants like Walmart (through Flipkart), and even our homegrown duopolies of Zomato and Swiggy. Eventually, it has evolved into an ecosystem that today also includes the transport sector (through Namma Yatri).
If you want to see how ONDC functions, simply open the Paytm app, and search for either ONDC Food or ONDC Shopping. You can then place an order directly with the restaurant, who will then dispatch the order via a delivery partner (Dunzo, ShadowFax or others) and you pay with the app itself. ONDC is also available through other apps such as PhonePe, but I’ve only used it on Paytm.
The Beckn protocol functions as the backbone of the ONDC ecosystem by treating each entity (discovery, booking, payment, delivery and fulfillment) as separate entities or micro-transactions. Do read What is the Beckn protocol – the backbone of ONDC? To get a full understanding of how things work. Note. I absolutely love ONDC. It has made things cheaper, especially food deliveries. But while ONDC acts similar to using an aggregator for purchases, ride-sharing is a different story.
Now, coming back to Ola, Uber, Rapido, Namma Yatri, and their new model of services.
For starters, under the old model of operations, there was some accountability. Auto-drivers, especially in Chennai, who have never operated by meter were beginning to get in line. However, in this new method of operation, the idea is ‘please discuss the fare with the driver’, or ‘negotiate the fare with the driver’, which essentially means, pay whatever the driver demands since we are no longer involved and in the event you get overcharged, then you can’t even go and claim a refund.
Rapido in fact tells you that the fare is not enough if nobody accepts the trip and starts nudging you towards increasing the fare. Namma Yatri too does something similar, except it calls it a tip. Ola meanwhile just says your fare will be between x and y, please discuss it with your driver and in my experience, they demand more than what the higher number is. Off-late, Rapido has extended this ‘tech-stortion’ to bikes as well. And on top of that, the captains demand ‘tips’.
Another important aspect is privacy. Yes, while drivers already had access to some data about you, such as your name where you are going and your phone number (kudos to Uber and Namma Yatri for masking my number), now they will also know which bank I use and my legal name.
Alternatively, there is the case where drivers flat out refuse to accept online payments and demand cash because they don’t want to use a bank account (Hint: It has to do with Income Tax). If you’re lucky, the driver won’t argue too much and may not abuse you.
One more important factor is time. With the earlier model of letting the app handle payments, all I had to do is get out of the vehicle and go on my way. With the direct payment model, that is problematic. My phone’s battery might be low, I may not have a stable internet connection, (both of these have happened to me) and the lamest excuse: The driver is waiting for the SMS to reach his phone. When I asked an Uber driver when he got paid (for in-app payments), he told me payments are processed daily, and he got paid at the end of a calendar day. I don’t see what the problem with that is. Most of the users are salaried employees who get their salary at the end of the month.
In the recent past, once this new model of operations became the norm, there have been many cases when autowalas have refused to accept a ride for a certain fare. For the commuter, the app suggests that they either bump up the price or offer an extra tip (depending on the app) in order to get drivers to accept the ride. This is basically going back to the old method of haggling over fare before settling down on what the driver wants.
Ridesharing was meant to bring in order into an otherwise unorderly sector, but it seems to have done the exact opposite. At the same time, governments have begun to look at autos as a perennial vote bank and therefore neither enforce meter rates nor penalise them for overcharging. Essentially, it’s the commuter who is left in the lurch.
What are your views on this? Do drop a note in the comments below.
Update: The practice of demanding extra upfront has not gone unnoticed. The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) took cognizance of the fact and sent a notice to Uber, then Ola and also Rapido and Namma Yatri. Minister for Consumer Affairs Pralhad Joshi called it ‘unethical’, ‘exploitative’ and an ‘unfair trade practice’. However, like always they first targeted Uber, which in the eyes of Indian regulators is always the “greedy, hungry, foreign capitalist” while going after the home-grown variants only after netizens pointed it out. The issue was created by the latter, rather than the former.
Hi there, sorry for not being too active here. There are some issues with the blog and a few posts that have been published are not visible because, well, let us not get into it.
Anyway, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) of the Government of India is observing 15 January to 14 February 2024 as Road Safety Month. As part of this, MoRTH and various other agencies, Central, State, Civic and Private are running a slew of activities to raise awareness on Road Safety.
Among these, the Centre of Excellence for Road Safety (CoERS), at IIT Madras, headed by Professor Venkatesh Balasubramanian has organised a series of events. Two of these events were local – a flashmob at Phoenix MarketCity, Velachery and a 5K run within the serene IIT campus – while the remaining three are pan-India events that are open to participation till 29 February 2024.
The first among these is the Road Safety Essay Challenge. This is open to all school students in classes 6 to 10 across India. You have to write a 500 word essay with the theme Steering Towards Safety: My Vision for Safer Roads.
The second is the Road Safety Photography Competition. This is open to all Indians. There are three themes that participants can choose, namely My Life, My Safety; Commit to Safe Transit; and Capturing Safer Infrastructure. You can submit photographs that are unedited and have been clicked in the last six months.
The third one is the Short Film Making Competition. This too is open to all residents of India. The theme is Road Safety by Young Actors. The film duration can be between 5 and 10 minutes, and can be in any Indian language with English subtitles.
All three competitions have prizes for the winners so do take part in them.
You can also watch Professor Venkatesh Balasubramanian talk on why raising awareness on road safety is important:
That’s all from me for this time. Till then, let’s make our roads safer. Stay safe, and happy traveling. Let’s raise awareness so that we’re #SaferTogether
In what can only be considered a big boost for public transport, clean air and people’s pockets, the Cabinet approved the PM e-Bus Sewa on 16 August 2023.
Under this scheme, the Centre plans to deploy 10,000 electric buses across the country. According to the release on the Press Information Bureau, the buses will be deployed under the public-private partnership (PPP) model across 169 cities while the infrastructure will be upgraded in 181 cities under Green Urban Mobility Initiatives (GUMI). The estimated cost of the PM e-Bus Sewa is expected to be ₹57,613 crore and is expected to generate over 45,000 direct jobs.
All cities with a population above three lakh (as per the 2011 census) along with the capital cities of Union Territories, Northeastern region and the hill states will be covered with priority being given to those cities that currently do not have an organised bus service.
The programme is divided into two segments:
Segment A involves augmenting city bus services in 169 cities along with providing support for the associated infrastructure, upgradation of depots, establishment of substations, etc.
Segment B will cover GUMI across 181 cities. Here, initiatives such as bus priority, multimodal transit, NCMC-based payment systems, and charging infrastructure will be provided.
States, cities and the parastatals will be responsible for making payments to the private operators while the Centre will provide subsidies to the extent provided under the scheme.
This scheme is great news for India as it will impact not just public transport, but a lot of things. For starters, it will give a huge fillip to the manufacturing and the supply-chain ecosystem of buses, their components, and behind-the-meter infrastructure. The increased availability of buses will also change how people perceive commuting and how they actually commute.
One good news that merged right away was Volvo’s entry into the electric bus segment in India. Volvo India stated that it would consider entering the sector under either the Volvo or Eicher brand.
While the government has done a lot in improving the electricity supply system with an increase in renewable energy including solar, wind and even hydel power, it needs to scale up on nuclear power.
The shift from the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM, with a jurm of a logo) to the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) to Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles in India (FAME) to now PM e-Bus Sewa has been quite fantastic.
Alright, this is yet another post not related to public transport, but I have in the past written about first responders. In fact, one of the long-pending article ideas is on what Indian Police officer’s utility belt should be.
When we Indians hear police and fancy cars, we usually think of the Dubai Police which is equipped with a wide variety of exotic and even concept cars including but not limited to Aston Martin, Bentley, Lambhorgini, Lexus, and of course the Lykan HyperSport (as destroyed by Brian and Dom in Furious 7) and W Motors’ Ghiath as well.
However, much before Dubai, the Korps landelijke politiediensten (KLPD; or National Police Services Corps) which was the former national police force in the Netherlands made use of luxury vehicles.
The story starts thus, that in the 1960s, motorways in the Netherlands saw a lot of accidents, mainly due to the absence of marked speed limits on roads. In order to combat this, the Highway Patrol division of the KLPD set out defining the requirements for a high-speed patrol vehicle. They had to be fast of course, they had to have a rear-engine, be able to accelerate and brake at the drop of a hat, and one very unique requirement was that they had to have an open top.
Attention turned towards the town of Zuffenhausen in Germany where the headquarters and factory of Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, known to most of us as just Porsche was located. The automobile manufacturer, who was winding up production on a well known model, the Porsche 356, ended up supplying the last ten cars of the model to the KLPD where they were the mainstay between 1962 and 1966.
In 1967, Porsche unveiled the Targa top variant of its flagship vehicle, the Porsche 911, and this caught the eye of the KLPD. The 911 was a hit with the law enforcement agency and remained a mainstay of its patrol units till 1996. A total of 507 Porsche vehicles, including the 356, 911, 914, 924 and 964 made their way into the agency’s motorpools, making it the largest historic Porsche police fleet in the world.
Each car was identifiable by it distinguished livery of orange and white with a single blue emergency light perched atop its A-pillar.
Now, very interestingly, all of these cars had open tops, hence the KLPD’s interest in the 911 only after the targa top was unveiled. The rationale for this? Officers were to be able to stand up in the car in order to direct traffic.
Another interesting thing to note was that the uniforms worn by officers driving these cars always included a distinctive orange helmet with safety goggles.
The livery has been since updated and now features blue and orange stripes and the uniform has a white and orange helmet.
Featured Image: A Porsche 911 being used by the KLPD (Oranje-Boom/Porsche Newsroom)
Did you know that there was actually a sport of double-decker bus racing? No kidding here, it’s true.
Between 1958 and 2007, the BBC ran a sports programme titled Grandstand. Rival channel ITV decided to get its own sports programme, titled World of Sports from 1965 to 1985. Part of the programming involved racing sports that were uncommon with the British audience at the time, such as ice speedway – a form of motorcycle racing on frozen surfaces – and NASCAR stock car racing.
In 1982, an interesting race was a part of the line-up. Double decker bus racing. You can see the video below.
World of Sports Double Decker Bus Racing
Now, according to a comment on Reddit by one hoksworthwipple, this is from 1982. The buses are Diamler Fleetlines from the N series (or N registration from 1975) and were operated by Transport for London (TfL). The race was held in Northampton. The event was hosted by Dickie Davis and the commentators were from the stock car racing staff and were Nigel King, Ron Pickering, or Frank Bough. The race was won by Terry Tellyn and bus number 4 was driven by Chris Critchett. It was also alleged that the race was fixed and buses bearing the sponsorship of Acorn Computers were to come first.
Now, this brings forth an interesting proposition. Mumbai’s remaining double decker buses are due to be phased out by the end of this year. Why not have a double decker race in India? India has three major racing tracks – Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida, the Madras International Circuit in Chennai and the Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore. I jokingly suggested this idea to several busfans and got mixed results. While Jarvik was supportive of the idea, Yash fears that the buses could tip over. I was also told that BEST currently does so, mostly on routes between Kurla and Santacruz.
Featured Image: DMS1599 stands in the station on a 179 service to Barking at Chingford Bus Station on 19 April 1980. (Photo: Martin Addison / Chingford Bus Station / CC BY-SA 2.0)
The network of electric scooters by Vogo rentals has successfully spread to the city of Thane, thereby going beyond the Mumbai Suburban district. The fleet has crossed around 1,130 so far while more scooters will be added as time passes. At the Economic Times Urban Mobility Summit, Shri Lokesh Chandra (General Manager of BEST) shared the aim of taking the fleet of e-bikes to 5,000 on one hand, while the BEST undertaking is gearing up to add 3,000 electric buses on other hand. As mentioned in the earlier article regarding Vogo rides, it was too early to judge a recently introduced service. For first impressions, you can read the article here.
After two months of usage, it is time to put forth an updated review highlighting both the pros and cons. We will cover it section-wise, below.
Speed and Pricing
New Version of E-Scooters procured in Mumbai that still have an issue of not going beyond 20kmph (Gandharva Purohit for BESTpedia)
When started, Vogo electric scooters were charging ₹2 per minute with vehicles touching a maximum speed of 25 km/hr. In December 2022, the prices were increased to ₹2.5 per minute for up to 30 minutes and ₹3 per minute after the first 30 minutes. The speed was locked at 20km/hr while some vehicles did not even exceed 15km/hr. The reason behind highlighting this is, a user is charged ₹2.5 per minute and driving at a low speed takes more time to cover a specific distance which costs additional charges at the end. This issue has been merely acknowledged by Vogo but appropriate action has not been taken to this day. The newly acquired scooters too are restricted to 20km/hr.
(Clockwise) Another scooter with Brake broken. Another scooter with Controls missing. A scooter with missing Headlamp (Gandharva Purohit for BESTpedia)
In a conversation with their support executive, the clarification behind the increase in fares was explained as “a step taken considering the market prices and several other factors which cannot be disclosed on a phone call.” A solution to this, “if the prices can’t be reduced, then at least make sure that max speed is kept up to 25km/hr” was taken as feedback to be escalated to the respective department.
Maintenance
(Top) A scooter with Accelerator Handle, Horn Broken & Fittings missing. (Bottom) A scooter with exposed wiring & handled not aligned with the wheel. (Gandharva Purohit for BESTpedia)
A scooter should have three components to be checked while commencing a ride – accelerator, brakes, and the horn. Acceleration up to 25km/hr is necessary since the scooters cannot go beyond their limit. Brakes are necessary to avoid collision and a horn is necessary to drive through busy streets. Since the scooters are parked on side of the road, they are vulnerable to accumulating dust and get dirty due to birds defecating from above. Further, driving a scooter will end up with wear and tear after some time even if driven with care. In this case, proper maintenance is the only way to keep vehicles safe to be driven again. After every ride, phone calls from customer support started becoming irritative when I realised, they did not read the feedback explaining the low rating being given. The reported scooters are unattended for days, causing a safety threat to future users. The funny part is the batteries are changed regularly, but certain scooters are not checked to ensure their roadworthiness.
Scooter getting the Battery Swapped at the Vogo Station near Kelkar College, Mulund (East) (Gandharva Purohit for BESTpedia)
To help recover the abandoned scooters, Vogo started a Bounty Hunter contest where consumers win credit points that can be redeemed for Vogo rides in the future. For getting points, one needs to search for the missing scooter within 200 metres of the given location on the map. I searched four locations but did not find a single missing scooter.
Left: BLR00380 – An e-scooter that was abandoned near the Mulund Railway Station (E) Bus Stop for Weeks. Right: BLR01044 abandoned at the VOGO Station near Cadbury Junction, Thane. (Gandharva Purohit for BESTpedia)
Refund
I never thought this part would have to be covered in a separate section considering the flawless service by Vogo at the beginning. After having an issue when the ride exceeds the time limit for cancellation, one was able to end the ride and apply for a refund. But in the recent few weeks, even demanding a refund for the same issue has turned out to be a pain. It seems like the team is dependent on phone calls which cannot be an ideal way of communication since a user may not necessarily be available to speak once the ride is over. Customer Care contact for users could have been a solution to establish better communication but the firm does exactly the opposite. Only Vogo’s team being able to call its customers is the root cause behind breakdowns not getting properly attended. A scooter with flat tyre does not come to one’s notice until they are driven on road. However, by the time you hit the road and notice that it is necessary to dock this vehicle back to where it was taken, the timer goes on charging you ₹2.5 per minute. Sometimes, things do get escalated into an argument with the firm to initiate a payment. I have personally come across other consumers schooling Customer Support.
Conclusion
Vogo Scooter parked along with Coo Rides bicycle on a footpath outside Joshi Bedekar College, Thane (Gandharva Purohit for BESTpedia)
Vogo started as the cheapest electric scooter service in Mumbai, but things started going south when tonnes of feedback ended up on the phone calls and didn’t show any improvement in the service. Every feedback ends with Customer Support apologising for the inconvenience caused, but their apology is of no use if the service is not improved at all. What I have observed at the ground level is two guys on personal bikes, swapping the batteries of every possible electric scooter daily and explaining to everyone how to use the service. The ground staff seems stressed out while working in the heat which decreases their interest in work.
Left: Scooter with a Brake Broken (Literally). Centre: Wires connected to Accelerator exposed. Right: Under age kids handling the Electric Scooter in presence of Ground Staff. (Gandharva Purohit for BESTpedia)
Since Vogo has expanded its network to Thane, the expectations are still high and they haven’t sorted out the earlier issue of delivering value for money. India is a price-competitive market where consumers prefer saving money along with getting services that justify their costs. The electric scooters cost more than a bus ticket but less than an auto rickshaw (that charges by the fare meter). If anybody from Vogo is reading this, please pay a visit to the stations and look at the condition of all the parked e-scooters. The educated class in metropolitan cities is well aware of how to handle new technology. Poor infrastructure for parking makes these vehicles look as if they were stuffed into random places. With new vehicles joining the fleet, Vogo can push its network beyond the limits of Thane City but before attracting new customers, the firm should focus on maintaining its existing ones.
A call for help from BEST bus passengers
It is equally the responsibility of BEST to either keep Vogo operational or stop it. Since these scooters now carry the logo of Mumbai’s public transporter, poor service will spoil the image of both Vogo and BEST altogether. The bus fleet expansion is a concern where BEST needs to act as soon as possible since 2023 is the year when more Tata CNG Buses along with the Bharat Stage 3 double-decker buses would reach end of life, without having an adequate volume of replacement available at this moment. The dwindling bus fleet is affecting the frequency and can be only dealt with by procuring more brand-new Buses to keep the service running. A fare hike in the future can be done by adding more fare slabs of 5 kilometre each, beyond the maximum fare of ₹20 and ₹25, up to maximum fares of ₹40 & ₹50. Prices of the daily pass can be increased by ₹10. This can help passengers use the bus service and assure BEST Undertaking that routes are not running at a loss due to lower fares for long distances.
Note: This article is aimed to throw light on the ground reality in Mumbai Metropolitan Region and does not intend to spread any kind of hate about any organisation. Every citizen deserves to get better Public Transport and we at BESTpedia are committed to reporting both sides of a coin.
Have you used a Vogo to get to a BEST bus?Do tell us your experience in the comments section.
This is a rather long article. I’d recommend you please read the entire thing before cursing me. Also, where I have begged you to click a link and read, please do?
Not too long ago, we were fed an idea of this futuristic transport system that was really high-speed in nature and had the potential to disrupt the very way we imagined commuting. The idea was so radical that we were even told that it could go up to 1220 km/hr (760 miles apparently). Imagine that. Imagine doing Mumbai to Chennai in a little over an hour. You could have Kande Pohe for breakfast, take a ride, go have some filter coffee and then get back to work.
This radical idea even had a radically different name – one which made no sense whatsoever – the Hyperloop. Of course, while billions of dollars were spent in various proposals, with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) even going so far as setting up a Centre of Excellence for Hyperloop Technology (CoEHT) at IITM to develop the Avishkar Hyperloop, it eventually was reported that SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk allegedly came up with the Vactrain-based concept to scuttle the California High-Speed Rail project. While I may not be the best to judge on this matter, the Hyperloop sadly has not evolved into a real thing, at least not yet. Till then, here’s Elon Musk’s napkin sketch of what his interpretation of George Medhurst’s 1799 concept looks like.
Elon Musk’s napkin sketch of the Hyperloop
A few years later, came another idea, again from Musk. This time, he got stuck in traffic and decided that he would bore his way out. And so he set about creating a very Boring venture. No, really, he started the Boring Company.
It all sounded good, and then it became essentially a system of tunnels for cars. I had written about it too, back then. Read about it here. Two years later amidst criticism, he announced that the system would prioritise public transport and those without cars. I wrote about that too. You can read it here, on Swarajya.
I think the culmination of Elon Musk’s boring idea and my idle mind during the lockdown, combined with the utter antipathy from the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vinash Vikash Aghadi government resulted in me writing one of my most blockbuster satire stories ever: In the absence of a depot, Mumbai Metro 3 to run BEST buses in the tunnel. But clearly, it didn’t go anywhere. Here is a picture of the Las Vegas Convention Centre (LVVC) Loop built by TBC.
Las Vegas Convention Centre (LVVC) Loop
Musk (again, yes, I know) then came up with a concept from the spaceX Starship called the BFR, aka the Big Falcon Rocket, aka the Big Fucking Rocket (as he said it) which he claimed could be used to do a trip from Delhi to Tokyo in 30 minutes. Not a bad idea, but it will probably take you twice that to get to Delhi Airport or wherever a rocket from Delhi would take off. Of course, this means Chhole Bhature for breakfast and Sushi for lunch. Win-win no? Here is a picture of that too.
SpaceX illustration of the 2018 Big Falcon Rocket at stage separation
Now, after boring you for nearly 500 words about Elon Musk, let me bring you to what I really wanted to talk about.
For those of you who are fans of Rowan Atkinson, you might already have an idea of what I am going to talk about. No, I’m not talking about the alien spaceship from Mr Bean. I’m not talking about The Thin Blue Line, Blackadder or the Glass Elevator from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. If you’ve seen Johnny English Reborn, you know what I’m talking about.
The future of transportation comes from Volkswagen. Yes, the same company that was founded by acolytes of a certain Adolf Hitler, disabled their vehicles’ emission control systems outside of test environments (fondly known as Dieselgate or Emissionsgate) and recently became the choice of Charmed actress Alyssa Milano who ditched her Tesla for a WV in support of free speech and to reject hatred and what not. I could go on but describing a libbu is tedious work.
Volkswagen Norway’s Commercial Vehicles team designed the as-yet unnamed device, the office chair. You know what they said about it?
The chair is designed to give those who work in an office a feeling of what it’s like to have a car from Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles as your workplace. You can drive, honk and listen to music – even signal as you take a turn into a meeting room.
Volkswagen
Oh yeah! The chair is here.
Volkswagen Office Chair
The chair can do around 20 km/hr and has a detachable battery and can do up to 12km on a full charge. Now that’s a bit of a let down, if you ask me. But this is indeed the future of transportation. And while people like me predicted six years ago that Handicar would be the future (at this point, I urge you to click this link, read and laugh, please), it turns out Eric Cartman sitting on a mobility scooter is closer to reality.
Eric Cartman on a Mobility Scooter
This is quite a breakthrough. Unfortunately, fans of super agent Johnny English may not be able to quite replicate what he did with the wheelchair with the WVchair. See what I did there? No? Me neither.
If you don’t remember what Agent English did, here is a visual reminder of what Agent English did.
However, this is a breakthrough. A major major breakthrough. Why, you ask? It’s simple. Whenever a company does something that is different from what it actually does, the results are interesting. Imagine if Apple manufactured a jetpack (or something similar, as Aapil Sathukudinathan discovered here, please read) or if Microsoft built software to count vehicles at Toll Plazas (oh wait, that was Traf-O-Data) or McDonald’s used the excess fat from their kitchen to power vehicles. This is as significant as Rolls Royce manufacturing honey! No kidding here though, Rolls Royce actually sold honey from bees at their apiary.
Rolls Royce Honey
So get ready. Get ready to ditch every mode of public and private transport that you have ever used in your life. It’s time for you to embrace the sedentary lifestyle of a software engineer and sit on your chair all day long as you go from one place to another.
If you’re on Twitter, do share this link and tag Elon Musk. Maybe he might invest in my potential transport-based startup. And also ask him to restore my old Twitter account, given his talks on free speech.
