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.
Public transit in India has a problem of plenty, on multiple levels. Plenty of obstacles, that is.
Obstacles, such as lack of political will to plan and execute projects at the state level, the Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) syndrome among persons who may or may not be affected by a planned project, a militant civil society, among various others.
One of these obstacles also include the variety of fare collection media. Most cities of India have not been able to replicate successful projects, like Oyster (London), Octopus (Hong Kong), Nol (Dubai), OMNY (New York), on their public transit systems, demonstrating a lack of coordination between the different public transit system operators. Most of such attempts – such as the GO MUMBAI card, designed for a single ticketing system on the BEST and the Mumbai Local – failed miserably, due to the transit operators’ resistance, or a half-baked product, or a private contractor lacking the required expertise to support the project, etc, or a mix of all of them[1]. Although, to be fair, the public transit systems in cities like London, Hong Kong, Dubai, New York etc are run directly or indirectly by a unified city-level transit agency, like Transport for London, Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York), Roads and Transport Authority (Dubai) and MTR Corporation (Hong Kong) – something which, as conventional wisdom suggests, may be in the realm of impossibility in India.
A national common mobility card had been on the drawing board since 2010. The card was titled “More” – a reference to the peacock – and was first launched in Delhi, for unified payments on the Delhi Metro and DTC buses. This too, failed, due to a lack of effort from all stakeholders. Delhi Metro, DTC and the Rapid Metro Gurgaon now have the ONE DELHI card, a closed-loop system.
In view of the failures of the past on this front, the Modi government launched the National Common Mobility Card in 2019, with a different approach this time. This time, banks too were involved in the project, and so was the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)[2]. Under this new approach, NCMC wasn’t launched as one card, but as a set of technological standards developed by Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL), the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), and the NPCI, to be adopted by all transit operators and projects, who are free to choose their own issuer and acquirer banks to run their respective fare collection and management projects. NCMCs mandatorily have to be RuPay contactless cards issued by banks – debit, credit or prepaid – making them eligible to be used for purposes other than public transit fares too.[3] Due to them being RuPay cards issued by banks, it is easy to scale up operations for public transit systems not using automated fare collection (AFC) systems, such as buses.
While now is the closest India has ever come to a truly “national” common mobility card, there is still a long way to go. Cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, continue to be very heavily reliant on suburban railway services operated by the concerned zones of the Indian Railways, by using legacy infrastructure. Most importantly, suburban railways, like the mainline long-distance operations, use the proof-of-payment system (PoP) for fare collection. The PoP system entails passengers buying tickets from the ticket windows or online (through the UTS app), and then using the train. The only fare control system, in this case, are random checks by ticket examining staff onboard or at the destination. Most of the times, these random checks are limited to AC trains, and the first-class carriages on non-AC trains. Thus, this makes for a highly inefficient mode of fare collection, control and management, due to the high possibility of fare evasion by passengers.
However, there seems to be no viable alternative to PoP systems on suburban railways. While suburban rail systems currently under construction, such as K-RIDE’s Bengaluru Suburban Rail Project, can adopt the AFC systems, changing the fare collection system on existing systems, and that too, heavily-used systems like the Mumbai Suburban Railway, may prove to be difficult without rebuilding the system from the ground up. Moreover, due to there being different fare classes and products (single journey tickets, return journey tickets, season tickets for first and second class, and also the luggage compartment), converting to AFC systems is all the more difficult.
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.
Well, this might be too early to judge a product that has been newly introduced but I am concluding this after testing it for two weeks. Frequent interactions through time-to-time feedback and testing all the components from speed to brakes and acceleration, this is an in-depth review of my experience with Vogo in Mumbai.
The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport (BEST) Undertaking introduced electric scooters, aiming to provide last mile connectivity to passengers from bus stops to their homes. The service is provided by Vogo, a Bengaluru-based start-up running rental services through their App. Services was introduced in Andheri at first and slowly reached Mulund by November.
VOGO Scooters parked at Salviwadi, Mithagar Road, Mulund East (Photo: Gandharva Purohit for BESTpedia)
Overview
The tariff for renting an E-Scooter was earlier set as ₹3 per km, but later changed to ₹2 per minute. The app gives you around a minute or two to cancel the ride in the beginning but if in case you fail to do so, you are charged with the basic fare of ₹2. Now the catch is, if you are stuck in traffic or at a signal for a long time, the timer goes on ticking & ₹2 per minute continues to be charged in your fare (just like the waiting charge of an auto rickshaw would go). The scooters in use are White Carbon O3 – manufactured by Gandhinagar-based White Carbon Motors – that have the capacity to run up to 45 kilometre on a full charge. The top speed of this scooter is 25 km/hr which exempts riders from needing driving licence as per laws set for driving electric two wheelers in India. However, when it comes to handling it, one should have an experience of driving two-wheelers (which I do) to operate this vehicle. The acceleration and braking is good and the most importantly – the scooter comes with a loud horn – quite an essential element to drive on city roads.
A promotional coupon handed over by the staff with new fares to be brought into effect soon (Photo: Gandharva Purohit for BESTpedia)
While I was initially unsure whether the batteries are swappable or not – they are, the scooter has a charging port right below the seat. Talking of the seat, it can only accommodate the driver, while there is a grab handle behind. Other variants of this vehicle come up with a carrier or a boot at the rear. The vehicle has keyless entry and gets locked/unlocked through the mobile app. One needs to ensure that both Bluetooth and mobile data are active when using the app.
TOOK ELECTRIC SCOOTER FOR A RIDE Clocks top speed of 25kmph. Shock absorbers are the Best. There's scope for improvement in the Mobile App @Vogo_rentals since payment took more time than expected. Also, please install a Station @ CheckNaka (East) & Mulund Rly Stn East. pic.twitter.com/eLQn6B6Xau
Payments can be made by linking either an Ola money wallet, Amazon Pay or PayTM (which didn’t link successfully in my case) or paying a ₹100 refundable deposit in order to use other modes of digital payment like Net Banking, Credit or Debit Cards, or UPI. As of now, there is no tariff plan for a monthly or quarterly basis (a subscription plan), but I did suggest that they introduce one in the feedback. A recent chat with one of their ground staff ended with an update with Vogo switching to old fare chart of ₹3 per kilometre for near future.
Operations
A cutout pasted on the VOGO Station near C.D. Deshmukh Garden, Mulund East (Photo: Gandharva Purohit for BESTpedia)
As per sources, the service centre for these scooters is located at Vikhroli which takes care of the electric scooters in the region from Ghatkopar to Mulund. The company has a tie-up with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) that gives them freedom to operate and park within the city. The app comes with a specific section for raising a refund request in case a challan is issued or the user has paid for the breakdown repair. In this case, the customer support executive is available on chat. Raising a grievance does take time since the mobile app is a bit complicated while finding the reasons to file a grievance. If you have an active ride at the moment of complaint, get ready to pay for the time that you wait. While ending the ride, the app asks to upload a picture of the landmark where vehicle is parked. While clicking the picture and uploading, it takes another minute wherein the user is charged an additional ₹2.
My experience after using the product-service
Fare breakdown of a ride
For the last two weeks, I have tested this product to its full potential just like how it tested my patience (more on that, later). The first ride was as smooth as butter, but it took time for me to finish the payment. One ride turned out to be tragic when the scooter I unlocked, was stolen by someone else. I was charged for the ride despite not driving the vehicle, for which raising a refund request took a week. Another tragic incident happened when I locked a scooter for some work and later on, it refused to unlock. I wasted a nice 20 minutes just trying to start the scooter but had to report a breakdown in the end. Luckily a refund was initiated quickly once the issue was brought to their notice.
My first ride started from a main road and went through the busy and narrow market road near the railway station. Traffic and pedestrians were the biggest obstacles here but thanks to the quick braking, I did not end up hitting any of them. The next ride, I took it across a rail-over-bridge, testing its ability to climb gradients. While I was earlier driving at 25 km/hr, the speed did not come down below 20km/hr while climbing. Taking the difficulty to next level, I did test it on a highway. Unfortunately, the scooter I was riding was locked to 20km/hr, so it was a boring ride. That day, I started from Tata Colony, Mulund for Nahur Railway Station, a route that has a two-minute-long signal at Bhandup Pumping Centre on its way. The wait at the traffic signal was the worst part since it added more to the fare and a speed lower than expected took more time to reach my destination, again charging me more. Throughout the ride, I stuck to the service road to stay away from high-speed traffic movement on Eastern Express Highway. The low speed does not fit on big roads. The last time I drove on the Eastern Express Highway was an electric bicycle in Thane operated by Coo Rides. The bicycle too had a speed limit of 25kmph (although majority of their bicycles are locked to 15 km/hr), it was the best riding experience since I drove through Majiwada traffic, Teen Hath Naka Flyover and the Kopri Rail Over Bridge. I did not get the same experience over here since the scooter was lagging in terms of speed.
Refund Speed
No matter how many flaws we may find in the operations, the process of initiating refund is quicker than expected. It is said that the money will be refunded in 5-7 business days, but it actually gets refunded in 5-7 minutes. The said incidents when I had raised a refund request and the day amount was debited from my account twice, while paying for deposit. In both the cases, my money was credited back the same day I had reported the problem.
Mishandling
SEEMS SOMEONE HAD AN ACCIDENT@Vogo_rentals one of the scooters is lying broken near Mulund Railway Station East Bus Stop (opposite Hotel Prashant). BLR001×× Number was not visible. Please get it attended on time. pic.twitter.com/eZ84IbpKHV
Whenever there is a use, there is a misuse as well. For any app-based rental services in the city, users should be equally aware of how to use it. In the past two weeks, majority of the users seen in Mulund are the slum boys who take these scooters for a ride and end up breaking the hooks that are supposed to be used to hold your belongings. To make things worse, some scooters have the grips missing on their grab handles, some have broken wirings that connect to the accelerator, some scooters have their horns dimmed (some don’t even have them working), while some scooters have only one brake functioning. Each and every fault cannot be blamed to the users since the operator too should take care of servicing these vehicles from time to time. After every ride, the app asks for a rating and every single star rating is followed by a phone call from their customer support executive. The customer support is open to feedback that are well-explained, but action needs to be taken before it is too late.
Two guys trying to fit on one scooter. (Photo: Gandhrava Purohit for BESTpedia)
Conclusion
The experience using Vogo E-Scooters has created a neutral opinion at end of the day. The product is very handy that it can be used regularly but sometimes it equally irritates you into wanting to uninstall it forever. First things first, the Vogo stations need to be set up in between two bus stops where the distance is more in order to walk. If used correctly, Vogo rides are the best medium since it is slower then buses but faster than going anywhere on foot. The last mile connectivity promised by BEST is only possible if Vogo has a strong network in the city where after every second lane, a station is made available to lower the time taken for walking from the bus stop to the doorstep. The fare chart needs to be revised according to distance once again since the timer can result in riders driving fast and dangerous and could end up in an accident. The rate can be charged as ₹1 per 500 metres so that ₹2 per kilometre would prove a value for money. Or else ₹1.5 per 500 metre too is possible since payment anyway happens digitally. Monthly, quarterly and half yearly subscription plans with a limit of 5 kilometres can be rolled out so that people can use the scooters on a regular basis without worrying about making a payment after every ride.
The next suggestion is regarding BEST buses, which brings us to the title. The Undertaking should take the fleet expansion seriously and bring more buses within a year as time is ticking for the ones aged beyond fifteen years. Chalo was a major breakthrough in terms of digital payments in bus travel. Vogo can become a success but if BEST does not improve the service, both would end up being a distraction. Frankly, what is the use of booking a ticket on an app if the bus service itself is not reliable? The BEST Undertaking has entered the Endgame wherein either it will increase the service and win the trust of its users, or become ignorant to criticism with a dwindling bus fleet, till the day it is wiped out of existence.
Have you used a Vogo to get to a BEST bus?Do tell us your experience in the comments section.
Gandharva wrote a a follow-up review after two months; you can read it here:
A while back the internet was flooded with a video of a bus with a scrolling display that read Madarchod Sukheja. However, it seems that the incident has quite a backstory to it.
According to reports, the bus is owned by Sukheja Travels, owned by one Satish Sukheja and plies on the Satna-Indore route in Madhya Pradesh. Apparently, neither the driver nor Sukheja were aware of the expletive on the bus’ display till people noticed it and alerted them to it. Accordingly, Anil Kumar Pathak, the company’s manager filed a case with the Kolgawan Police Station in Satna.
So what happened?
A while back, one employee named Salman Khan was hired by Sukheja as a bus driver. However, it soon came to light that Khan had trouble driving post evenings and wore high-powered glasses. Sukheja questioned the transport department for issuing him a licence in such a condition, his licence did not show his glasses in the photograph. Subsequently Khan was offered to drive a four-wheeler instead but that didn’t pan out and after a month of employment, he was let go off. In his complaint, Pathak stated that only Khan had the password for the LED display unit for the bus in question (MP 19 P 7782) and thus it was evident that he was the one who tampered with it.
Since then, the story has gone viral over the internet with most people (including me) laughing it off as a practical joke but once knowing what the real story was, it is a little sad. It also speaks volumes about our driving licence regimes and that something must be done to rectify it. It also talks about the dangers of leaving the bus display controls open to potential misuse as they could be used for a wide variety of purposes.
Sukheja is looking at recovering ₹55,000 from Khan for a possible malfunctioning display.
To mark India’s 75th year of Independence, the Birhanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking arranged its buses at the Mumbai Central Depot to form the number 75, similar to its sibling the Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport (NMMT). While the NMMT paraded its Ashok Leyland JanBus and JBM EcoLife fleet, BEST decided to do so with its Tata CNG fleet.
Take a look at the pictures below, as shared by BEST on Twitter.
BEST buses at Mumbai Central Depot parked to form the number 75
Here is a more expansive view of the same formation before completion.
BEST buses forming number 75 at Mumbai Central Depot
Along with this, the undertaking also lit up Parivahan Bhavan, (Transport House) at its headquarters in Colaba in the tricolour. You can see it here:
