What do you do when you have to lodge a complaint on the bus services or you have to make requests for new bus routes ? What is the platform for communication between the service provider and the customer.
In this piece, I would like to talk to you about the successful hyper local approach of TSRTC (Telangana State Road Transport Corporation) in connecting with people who use their services.
Problematic History ?
TSRTC and APSRTC have always had a helpline number for people to contact and lodge their grievances. After the Online reservation portal for undivided corporation went live, The new toll free number started taking complaints only about the services which were listed for reservation. Meanwhile there were complaints from users about the depot managers and other officials being inaccessible. Heeding to the complaints, The corporation decided to make contact details (phone and email) of all of it’s major officials public. They are available on both TSRTC and APSRTC ‘s portals under the contact us drop down. This opened up opportunities for the tech savvy to write E-Mails to the officials with complaints but the real connect with passengers was still missing.
The Solution !
It was decided in October last year that officials will take calls one day every month at least in Hyderabad city and make effort to network between themselves to solve the issues raised by passengers. The first “Dial Your Officer” programme was conducted on the last Monday of October and has been continuing with out a break every month on the last Monday since then. All Telugu news papers in Hyderabad are informed about the upcoming edition of the call-in and all of them publish a small news item. The small yet significant snippets of news have the contact numbers of Depot, Regional and Divisional Managers along with the executive director. It is interesting to see how the news papers publish this news in the constituency papers of the district tabloid. The officials take calls from 5-6 pm in the evening. Not to say they do not take calls other wise, But this specific time is reserved for the passengers to lodge complaints and give suggestions.
(All telugu news paper have a tabloid dedicated for local reporting of a particular city/district. This tabloid also contains a few pages for each assembly constituency with hyper local reporting and these are changed as per the areas to which the news paper is circulated to.)
The Results
6 weeks in to the launch of this programme, we analyzed the decisions made since the start and found that this is a really novel way of engaging with people and getting to know what they actually need.
New Routes:
10 new routes were started which will connect the city in a completely different way as opposed to now and expand the network.
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ECIL-Ibrahimpatnam
ECIL is a residential-industrial suburb in the North East of Hyderabad and Ibrahimpatnam is a Nagarpanchayat bordering the outer ring road in South East known for its excessive number of engineering colleges. For both of these suburbs, LB Nagar,Uppal and Habsiguda are the nearest urban centers. There was no direct bus connecting both ends through these urban centers. Hence, the corporation after requests from people in both of these suburbs decided to start this new route connecting them with their nearest urban centers. This route has proven to be a success with more than 75% occupancy which exceeds the target occupancy at 72%.Similar to this, many requests were made by people from new and emerging residential colonies all over the suburbs. This spun the corporation in to activity and made them really think about the impending crisis post metro. The corporation started re-aligning its operations concentrating on the suburbs and connecting the core city in a much denser way. Nine other routes include direct services from Mehedipatnam and VBIT park to Medchal, Extension of services to new colonies on Bangalore highway beyond Aramgarh and more connections to the northern suburb, Suchitra to the city via Bowenpally.
Re-Starting Old Routes:
NGOs colony, which together with places beyond Dilsukhnagar on Vijayawada highway contributes to more than 40% of the total premium bus pass purchases in Hyderabad got treated with three of its older and much appreciated services getting reinstated. 300V,186 and 2/100V were restored over a period of six months.
Women’s special services:
There were a lot of complaints from the women staff of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh state Secretariats who have stayed loyal to the ladies special buses operated during rush hours about the reduced fleet strength. The number of ladies special buses have since been increased from 68 to 100 much to the joy of women employees but we still think there is more work to be done on this front.
Maintenance of buses:
Every one Including us have complained about the cleanliness and maintenance of buses, to which the corporation’s immediate response was to complete hiring new maintenance staff to clean the buses. The cleanliness of buses has definitely improved. But, we think there is still more work to be done on a long term basis to get the maintenance on track.I will digress here a bit to inform you how understaffed RTC’s mechanical staff are. There have been no new recruitments in what is called “shramik” cadre since four years and all the new placements are done through a flawed system of “outsourcing”. This apathy towards maintenance staff should end if you aspire to operate buses in good shape.
There were also a lot of complaints about the rude behavior of crew. This we think is majorly because of the working conditions.There were also complaints about how the crew itself is not informed about the various subsidized schemes the corporation offers. Hence, Training programmes to sensitize the crew have been organized at the corporation’s own staff training institute in Hakimpet.
Bus Bunching:
Bus Bunching has been a perennial problem in all major Indian cities operating large networks in mixed traffic. People complained about this and RTC got its act together to rationalize a few routes to avoid bus bunching to an extent it can control. We should all understand that it cannot accurately predict the traffic conditions but working towards increasing internal efficiency will help both the passengers and the corporation. For example, prior to route rationalization some 12 depots were operating on route no 218, which is the north west south east corridor of the city. This resulted in weird timings as opposed to a clean cyclic time table. Efforts were made to restrict these services to only eight depots and there is a clear improvement on ground with a clean cyclic time table. Route rationalization has been an ongoing effort since then all over the city and we hope to see more reliable services very soon.
All of the above mentioned issues were voiced by regular commuters easily only because of the easy access provided by TSRTC. Now, If you all have any issues regarding the operations, Never hesitate to voice them. TSRTC is always welcoming in taking your complaints. For example,Local travel groups have always been active in meeting the depot managers to get their issues sorted.Start engaging with your corporation now ! Go ahead and talk to them. Make this “Dial Your Officer” programme a start point.
“Dial Your Officer”
Last Monday of every month, 5pm-6pm.
Find the contacts : here
Dial Your Officer: An initiative by the TSRTC to listen to its Commuters Share on X
