In an interesting development, Orbit Wallet (Sakaera Technologies) won part of a $100,000 (₹86 lakh) as part of the Station Access and Mobility Programme (STAMP) Challenge : Nudging Commuter Behaviour organised by the Toyota Mobility Foundation, Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL), WRI Foundation, and Electronics City Industrial Association (ELCIA).
As per a LinkedIn post by Orbit’s CEO Harshvardhan Zaveri, the pilot programme is to start in August 2025 with tie-ups with companies in Electronics City to issue Orbit Wallet’s Prepaid Card to promote patronage of the National Common Mobility Card (NCMC). The other three winners of the STAMP Challenge, according to a Deccan Heraldarticle are CommuteVerse, Nippon Koei Business Ventures and Tummoc (Transhelp Technologies). Under STAMP 2025, the winners will use demonstrate the integration of behavioural patterns with public transport.
The Orbit Wallet, an NCMC-enabled RuPay Prepaid Card
While the timing and location of Orbit’s announcement coincides with the opening of Namma Metro’s Yellow Line that will connect Electronics City with the rest of Bengaluru, we hope that it will also translate towards the BMTC accepting the NCMC as a payment method. BMTC had in May 2025 announced that it was looking at upgrading its ticketing systems to accept the NCMC. A year prior to that, it was reported by Christin Mathew Philip of MoneyControl that BMTC with a daily ridership of 38 lakh was not keen on accepting the Namma Metro NCMC because BMRCL had a ridership of 7-8 lakh, an argument that defies logic and defeats the purpose of the NCMC itself.
Let’s hope that BMTC will take the smart step and roll-out the red carpet for the NCMC soon.
Notes: Nippon Koei is a Japanese consultancy firm that works in the transport sector. It has worked with the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) in the past. Tummoc is the platform that allows commuters to track BMTC buses and also purchase daily passes. In Delhi, commuters can buy bus tickets as well with Tummoc.
I couldn’t find much about CommuteVerse but this LinkedIn post by Dr Aekta Aggarwal, Associate Professor at IIM Indore sheds some light on it. She describes it as a behaviourly intelligent commuting platform. I will post more once I learn more about it.
Featured Image:Winners of the STAMP Mobility Challenge (Picture via Toyota Mobility Foundation)
On 9 May 2025, the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) Undertaking implemented a fare revision after sticking to lower ticket fares for nearly six years. This directly impacted most feeder routes as one way fares doubled but unlocked the potential to re-introduce long routes as the fare slabs were now available for up to 50kms. While the Undertaking is working on introducing a 3km fare slab for feeders routes, a new trunk route was introduced on 1 June 2025. The route A-490 operates from Dadlani Park in Thane to Mantralaya, via the Eastern Freeway.
Currently limited to just two trips in each direction from Monday to Saturday, A-490 aims to cater to the peak hour rush. While the bus is struggling to gain enough ridership, I took a ride from Mantralaya to understand why.
History
The Eastern Freeway is a toll-free, access-controlled road, completed in three stages – Orange Gate to Wadala, Anik to Panjarpol and Panjarpol to Ghatkopar-Mankhurd Link Road. The road up to Panjarpol Circle was inaugurated in 2013 and the section up to Mankhurd Link Road was opened in April 2014. The extension of this Freeway up to Mulund is still under construction.
BEST operated two Express routes along the Eastern Freeway – C-8Exp from Shivaji Nagar to Mantralaya and C-50Exp from Vashi to World Trade Center. Once the entire stretch was opened, BEST started A-8Express using their JCBL Cerita fleet from Mulund to the World Trade Center. The route was shut down after BEST discontinued all air-conditioned services in 2017. C-50 and C-8 eventually merged into a new route A-21 from Anushakti Nagar to Electric House during the route rationalisation of 1 September 2021. On 1 July 2022, the route was converted to an AC route and renumbered to A-26 which is presently in service. However, A-26 uses the Eastern Freeway between Jijamata Nagar (Mahul) and P D’Mello Road. A-490 on the other hand uses the entire stretch of Eastern Freeway from P D’Mello Road to Ghatkopar-Mankhurd Link Road.
Journey
Left to Right: Bus A-490, booking a ticket via the Chalo App and the view of the Easter Freeway from the front of the bus. (Photo: Gandharva Purohit for BESTpedia)
At 5:30pm in the evening, my bus started from Mantralaya for its 43km-long journey to Balkum – Dadlani Park. Eight passengers including me boarded from the first stop and ten more boarded at Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Chowk (Museum), only to alight at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT). The bus had to do a detour via Mint Road citing manoeuvrability issues in taking a left at the GPO Signal. Post Carnac Bunder, there were just ten passengers onboard (including me) for the Freeway Ride. Two more passengers boarded post Indian Oil Nagar on Ghatkopar-Mankhurd Link Road.
Ramabai Nagar was the common point where this route runs parallel with A-491 (earlier known as C-42Exp) to Dadlani Park. The bus was fairly vacant with just half of the seats occupied as we pulled outside Ghatkopar Depot for an unscheduled halt. After a 10min halt on the main road, we continued on the congested Eastern Express Highway. Meanwhile, a passenger accidentally boarded our bus by reading Mantralaya on the destination board but realised this bus was heading to Thane. It took another 50 minutes for the bus to reach Mithagar, Mulund East where I alighted at 7:47pm.
A view of BEST Bus A-490 at Mithagar, Mulund (Photo: Gandharva Purohit for BESTpedia)
In comparison with taking route A-138 to CSMT followed by a Thane slow local, my travel time was fair, coming under the two hour mark while the traffic congestion and unpredictable signals on highway resulted in a 2:17hr journey. Normally, the first bus reaches Mithagar by 7:20pm. It is difficult to imagine how the driver managed to reach Dadlani Park as traffic on the highway gets worse after entering Thane.
Conclusion
If someone from BEST is reading this, we’ll be more than happy if the following solutions are considered.
Limited stoppages with proper promotion attracting the passengers to opt for this bus. Taking the Ghatkopar Depot flyover similar to A-491 will save time.
The route board or display mentioning just the destination along with “via Eastern Freeway” will help improve the discoverability of this bus. The existing “source to destination” format creates confusion that can be solved with focusing on the destination and the route taken.
Sticking to peak hour time slots with an increase in schedules from two to four as more buses get inducted in the fleet.
This article is aimed to have a solution-oriented approach that is beneficial for both the passengers as well as the Transport Undertaking. BEST is losing its aged fleet with every passing day but the induction of brand-new buses from Olectra has gained pace in 2025, retaining the hope for survival. With the fare revision and fleet expansion in place, patience is the only thing we passengers have to offer.
Featured Image: Side View of Bus A-490 at Mantralaya (Photo: Gandharva Purohit for BESTpedia)
Alright, this might seem a little offbeat but hear me out. Let’s talk about cats. Cats are wonderful creatures. Sure, they may be naughty but they’re great at making people feel better. And they’re cute.
The internet is rife with pictures and videos of cats and kittens at various public transport hubs across the world, especially in Istanbul, Turkiye. Recently, videos went viral of a feline napping atop the turnstiles at a metro station in Bengaluru.
Since then, I’ve observed numerous felines across multiple transit points – mostly metro stations – across Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai and Pune. In each case, someone either petted them or just gushed in excitement. I did both.
Cats are excellent creatures in public spaces. Apart from being adorable, they help in keeping pests under control. They’re natural predators and can easily take down mice, rats, pigeons and other creatures that can cause disease.
Take the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office in United Kingdom for example. It’s role, as the title specifies is to catch mice in the government office. The role originated in the 1500s and has been prominent given how London was rife with rodents – often carrying disease-causing germs – which also ate a lot of the governments documents. Of course, that may not be the case now, but who does go “awwwww” when they see Larry the cat? Or remember the story of James Bowen (who sold the street newspaper The Big Issue) and his cat Bob?
There are numerous examples of cats in public transport. They’ve been known to board buses, trains, or just sit at platforms and sometimes take a nap atop a turnstile. They’ve been seen across the world, not just in the UK or Turkiye, but in Japan, France and other parts of the world.
Contrary to popular belief, cats are not some evil, self-serving creatures, but extremely lovable and cute animals. And they’re extremely adorable.
So what’s your view on this?
Featured Image: A Cat sitting near a Train (Image generated via OpenArt using Flux/Cute Crayon)
In 2023, a considerable furore was created when the Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking’s older double-decker buses were being scrapped. A glimmer of hope emerged when a group of busfans managed to write to then CM Shinde and get one of them preserved in the BEST Museum at the Anik Depot.
Subsequently, the undertakings’ parent body, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai or Brhihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (MCGM or BMC) decided to convert them to galleries, libraries and cafes. However, not much is known about the plan or what happened thereafter.
On a recent trip to Delhi, something caught my eye. At South Extension, I saw a double-decker bus (I’m not sure if it is a real bus or just a model) with the name Food Bus of India.
Food Bus of India at South Extension, Delhi. (Pic: Srikanth Ramakrishnan/BESTpedia)
On searching, I noticed that this is a restaurant chain with multiple outlets across Delhi. Now, I have seen a similar concept in Mumbai as well, but what it were really a bus? A bus that had carried people in the past and was part and parcel of the city’s vibrant economy, culture and heritage?
Now, the idea isn’t far fetched. Indian Railways, thru its subsidiary Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) is doing the same across multiple railway stations in India with an old coach converted to a restaurant. Given the financial situation that BEST is in, this would make a lot of sense. Outsource the operations of a restaurant to a private agency, albeit with a stringent background check, unlike what the transport body is doing with its wet lease of buses. Let the maintenance of the buses itself remain under BEST’s purview. These dilapidated buses can be transformed into a vibrant, upscale cafe and BEST can ensure that it gets a rent or operations fee and a small percentage of the profits.
In 2020, during the pandemic, BEST’s younger sibling, the Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport (NMMT) undertaking had decided to upscale two disused buses into artistic mobile toilets. Then there was the case of the infamous “bus mall“ spotted on a bus owned by the Vasai-Virar Municipal Transport (VVMT) undertaking. BEST can easily transform its old buses and make something meaningful of them. Further, they need not pay for additional land by placing them on the premises of existing bus stations.
My belief in this idea stems from an episode of Popeye that I saw as as child. In it, after a fight with Bluto or Brutus, Popeye turns an old plane into an eating joint with stools next to the wings turning the wing into the table. As always, Wimpy comes and orders a hamburger, promising to pay him back the next Tuesday. I have been looking for this image online and even tried to get AI to generate the image, but forgive me, I am unable to get that.
Let us hope that the buses have not been scrapped in entirety and something can be done about them.
If you have any interesting suggestions, do drop a line in the comments section below. If you like this idea, do share this post with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and let him know!
Featured Image: A double-decker bus used as a restaurant (Concept Art/LeonardoAI)
In a bid to automate and mechanise certain functions while putting older buses of the fleet to better use, the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) has converted an old bus into a moving high-pressure cleaning system.
Bus stations of the Corporation’s Rainbow bus rapid transit system (Rainbow BRTS) were earlier cleaned manually by sweeping them. The plan to to change the process was initiated by Babasaheb Mulani, a bench fitter from the Pimpri Depot under the guidance of depot manager Bhaskar Dahatonde and DME Rajkumar Mane.
The vehicle was used to clean BRTS shelters in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad during the ongoing G20 summit.
PMPML shared a video explaining the new system to their social media accounts. Below is the video from their Youtube channel and the wonderful caption from their Instagram account.
Innovative BRT Bus stop cleaning system by PMPML
Until date BRT bus stops of PMPML were majorly cleaned using normal mechanisms like sweeping, but to thoroughly clean every corner of a bus stop PMPML came up with an idea to convert an old bus into a moving high pressure cleaning system.
Due to resolute efforts from Babasaheb Mulani (Bench Fitter) under the guidance of Bhaskar Dahatonde (Pimpri Depot Manager) and Rajkumar Mane (DME) this idea came into existence and was successfully executed.
As the cleaning performance of this innovation was excellent, this bus was also sent to clean BRT bus stops and routes during the G20 Summit.
PMPML heartily appreciates this innovative creation and ideation by our employees.
पीएमपीएमएलचे बीआरटी बस थांबे सध्यापर्यंत फक्त झाडून साफ केले जात होते, परंतु बसस्थानकाचा प्रत्येक कोपरा पूर्णपणे स्वच्छ करण्यासाठी पीएमपीएमएलमधील कर्मचाऱ्यांना जुन्या बसला चालत्या फिरत्या उच्च दाबाच्या स्वछता प्रणालीमध्ये रूपांतरित करण्याची कल्पना सुचली.
हि कल्पना सत्यात उतरविण्यासाठी पिंपरी आगाराचे आगार व्यवस्थापक भास्कर दहातोंडे व पिंपरी आगार अभियंता राजकुमार माने यांच्या मार्गदर्शनाखाली बेंच फिटर बाबासाहेब मुलाणी यांनी आटोकाट प्रयत्न करून टाकाऊ साहित्या पासून सर्व्हिस व्हॅन मध्ये ‘फिरते वॉशिंग सेंटर’ तयार केले व त्याचे यशस्वी प्रात्यक्षिक घेतले.
या प्रणालीच्या अत्यंत उत्कृष्ट कामगिरीमुळे जी२० परिषदेदरम्यान बीआरटी बस थांबे व मार्गांची स्वछता करण्यासाठी या यंत्रणेचा वापर करण्यात आला.
आमच्या कर्मचार्यांच्या या नाविन्यपूर्ण निर्मितीचे आणि कल्पनेचे पीएमपीएमएलतर्फे मनस्वी अभिनंदन.
PMPML
The vehicle is fitted with a 1 horsepower (1 HP) motor, a 2,000 litre Sintex tank and a service pipe. The bus is then driven to the bus stop and pressure washed.
According to Shri Mulani, Dahatonde, and Mane, the plan is convert older buses of the depot to such cleaning vehicles and use it to keep bus stops across the twin cities clean. A trial was conducted at the Akurdi BRTS stop. Passengers too appreciated the clean bus stop.
The rear of the PMPML Washing Service Van of the Pimpri Depot (Screengrab from PMPML’s video)
Okay, this might sound odd but one please do read on. It’s been over seven years since I wrote on anything related to Fire and Emergency Services. Interestingly, the only time I wrote on the subject was a poem about a firetruck (linked at the bottom).
Anyhow, getting back on topic, one thing off late I’ve noticed is an increasing number of fires in Mumbai, especially in and around Andheri. I was having a conversation on this matter with the friendly folks at the Andheri Lokhandwala Oshiwara Association (ALOCA) because a fire broke out earlier in the day (18 December) at a building near Lokhandwala Circle.
I just did a Twitter search for the world “fire” from ALOCA’s Twitter account and I counted no fewer than five fires in 2022 that they had reported. Now, the nearest fire station is the Andheri Fire Station that is located on Swami Vivekananda Road (SV Road) near Irla, approximately 1km south of Andheri station. The next fire station is the Goregaon Fire Station that lies behind the Goregaon/Oshiwara bus depots. Andheri East is served by the Marol Fire Station that is located at Marol Naka.
A cursory search revealed that the K-East and K-West wards were the most populated wards as per the 2001 census. Assuming a uniform growth rate, that would mean that the K wards remain among the most populated regions in the city.
Now I was reading up a report on Hindustan Times about a fire that took place in early 2022 at the Chitrakoot grounds on Link Road between DN Nagar and Lokhandwala. A film set caught fire resulting in the death of a 32-year old labourer. Now what is interesting is that a portion of the grounds was reserved to build the Mumbai Fire Brigade’s Ambivali Fire Station as part of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai’s (MCGM) Development Plan for 2034.
The plot in question belongs to the state government and in 2009 the MCGM had issued a commencement certificate to a private developer for construction of the fire station but it had since been cancelled due to a delay (or as we know it better, no action) on the part of the developer. The developer meanwhile has taken the entire plot on lease from the state government.
Due to heavy traffic in the region, which has now gone up since the closure of the Gokhale Bridge (one road closure has ripple effects, remember), it can take anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour for a fire tender to reach the Lokhandwala region which has numerous high-rises, malls, and shopping centres in the locality. The plot was reserved for a fire station over 20 years ago.
The plot meanwhile is used for a variety of commercial purposes from weddings to film shoots to cricket turfs and what not. Rents are lucrative too, and I have been told that cricket alone fetches anywhere upwards of ₹10,000 an hour.
With the polls to the MCGM looming, right now is the time to make noise about this. When political parties announce their respective candidates, please approach them and make sure that they promise it in their manifesto. That is the first step. If the candidate isn’t approachable, then it’s best you vote for someone else. Given that the Mayor of Mumbai has been from the Shiv Sena from 1996, I’d say there is limited scope of getting them to build one. Approach your MLA, especially if they’re part of the government. Andheri West residents, please approach Ameet Satam the local MLA while Versova residents please approach Dr Bharti Lavekar, both of whom are part of the ruling government. The advantage of having staggered elections is that if the person who you voted for in the MCGM isn’t doing good, you can avoid voting for them in the general election to the Parliament or the Legislative Assembly.
If you’re interested in reading the poem I wrote on a Firetruck, you can read it here: The Little Red Firetruck
Featured Image: MAN Firetruck of the Mumbai Fire Brigade at JVPD Circle (Photo: Srikanth Ramakrishnan/BESTpedia)
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.
The Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking will soon rationalise a few bus routes so that they ‘merge’ with others and thus can help commuters change buses easier, reportsShashank Rao for the Free Press Journal.
Under this new hub and spoke model, bus routes will converge at key areas, allowing for streamlined traffic and better changeovers for passengers. In order to implement this plan, the undertaking will require 4,852 buses. It currently has only 3,242.
What all does the plan entail?
The plan involves five nodal points each in the island city and Western suburbs and four in the Eastern suburbs. They are Colaba, Backbay, Worli, Mahim and Dadar in the south, Bandra, Santacruz, Goregaon, Dindoshi and Dahisar in the West and Sion, Mulund, Anushakti Nagar and Ghatkopar in the East. Different routes will converge at these nodal points, allowing passengers to seamlessly change routes.
Further, bus operations will be divided into five corridors. There is a main corridor, a sub-corridor, an east-west corridor and rail-feeder corridor. The last one will also see an expansion once Metro Lines 2 and 7 are operational.
What is the hub and spoke model?
The hub and spoke model, as opposed to the point-to-point model is where a certain geographical region has a point that acts as a hub. Multiple routes converge at the hub , thus allowing an exchange of passengers from one route to another. The model is heavily used in aviation where flights along lesser served routes arrive at a hub and passengers then transfer to another flight.
In the current context, an example of the hub and spoke model (partially) would be people taking the suburban line to either Andheri or Ghatkopar and then boarding the Metro Line 1.
BEST’s plan to go for a hub and spoke model would augur well for commuters.
Featured Image: Buses parked at Agarkar Chowk in 2018, viewed from the skywalk by Srikanth Ramakrishnan
With the ongoing lockdown causing a strain on the finances of public transport operators, the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) is now looking at raising revenue through alternative means. After a well-thought idea to monetise bus stops with shops was ridiculed over flimsy reasons, the corporation is now looking at starting parcel services within its operational region according to a report by the Indian Express.
PMPML chief executive officer Rajendra Jagtap has said that the corporation is exploring new revenue sources to sustain itself. It is looking at running courier services on a revenue sharing basis with a private partner. While PMPML itself will handle the main transportation of goods, the private entity would handle last mile connectivity and loading and unloading of goods within the depots.
Jagtap added that the Corporation’s current fleet of buses can handle the load with a designated space near the rear entry or the driver’s compartment. Parcels will be loaded and unloaded at depots.
PMPML currently covers 300 routes across 1,900km within the Pune Metropolitan Region (PMR) that includes the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) limits, the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) limits, the Pune Cantonment, Khadki Cantonment and Dehu Road Cantonment limits along with 100 villages and towns in the vicinity. Buses run for 19 hours in a day till midnight, carrying 11 lakh passengers in a day.
Last week, the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) launched a tender worth ₹45 crore under the Smart Cities Mission to set up 1,500 smart bus stops which included a 5x5x7 feet shop and kiosk. According officials of the corporation, the aim of this plan is to monetise bus stops, which makes sense given that the PMPML is currently sitting with a financial deficit of ₹600 crores.
However, the move has not gone down with certain people. Various groups including women’s organisations and others (interestingly described as ‘sundry’ by Pune Mirror in its not-so-neutral report) are opposing the move on rather flimsy grounds. They claim that the stalls will attract paan, bidi, gutka and cigarette shops which in turn will invite loiterers who might cause an inconvenience to female commuters. They have demanded that the corporation junk the plan and look at advertising and corporate social responsibility (CSR).
While advertising is lucrative, it’s scope is limited. As for CSR, the lesser said, the better. Now, the important question is, why is this move important. PMPML wants to implement these new bus shelters on all the bus rapid transit system (BRTS; also known as Rainbow) corridors as well as on major prime routes. It requires a total of 4,200 shelters across Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, and currently has only 1,996 shelters and that figure includes 749 stainless steel shelters (similar to the ones in Mumbai) and 110 BRTS shelters.
The argument that this move will only attract paan-bidi stalls is an assumption. So far, no bus station (except maybe a few in scattered rural parts of India) has a paan-bidi or gutka stall on its premises. The same goes for metro stations. Along with this comes a question: Which paan-bidi stall will go thru a government bidding process to set up a stall when the proprietor can easily set up a stall elsewhere. Next point: Most such stalls are invariably located next to our just outside a restaurant or a bar, often attached to them but accessible from the outside. That’s where the business comes. People go there after drinking or eating. Why would they come to a bus stop if the profit motive is limited?
Going forward that this opposition is based on an assumption, let us review some precedents.
In 2015, the Ahmedabad Janmarg Limited (AJL), facing increasing losses decided to start renting out space to banks to set up ATMs. Then, it went a step further and approved a plan to set up a tea stall that would sell refreshments and soft drinks at Maninagar and Nehrunagar Janmarg stations. Of course it is important to note that AJL uses off-board ticketing using AFC gates, much like a metro rail system. The PMPML meanwhile does not have such a system in place for the BRTS. The onus on ensuring that the shops are rented out to the right people lies on the PMPML, but having said that, they would not be stupid enough to rent them out to paan shops.
Taking a leaf out of metro systems’ books across the country; many of them have turned to non-fare revenue to offset losses. This includes auctioning off naming rights of stations, something not feasible for bus stops, advertising on the bus shelters and of course, retailing. This is not just limited to India, it is seen globally at various metro systems across. The largest success stories of this are in Delhi, Mumbai and of course Chennai.
If people are concerned with the size of the shop, that’s the size of many shops on the Mumbai Metro and even the Chennai Metro. The Jai Shree Radhe Soda Pub on the Mumbai Metro and Tibbs Frankie outlet on the Chennai Metro are just slightly larger than the size prescribed by the PMPML. But if the AJL could successfully have done it, why not Pune?
With a burgeoning debt that the corporation is sitting on, non-fare revenue is a great way to ease the burden. Opposing good plans with flimsy excuses, not so good.
Featured Image: An old makeshift PMPML bus stop sign from 2015.
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