Steering a roadworthy story

Steering a roadworthy story
Stephen David
February 21, 2008
India Today

For a harried city traveller, the idea of utopia—a smooth ride with minimum stoppage at traffic lights—is doomed to remain just that. With millions of cars being added on roads every year and public transport a near failure in the best Indian cities, decongestion of roads looks like a distant dream.

In the country’s cyber capital, Bangalore, narrow roads and two-million twowheelers made for a nightmare combination and national headlines. But the remodelled Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has to rectify the situation.

In a bid to encourage public transport, it has introduced a slew of passenger-friendly initiatives like smart pre-paid cards, global positioning systems (GPS) in buses and, unbelievably posted a profit of Rs 224 crore in 2006-07. A recent report in the Indian Journal of Transport Management declared: “the BMTC is the best-performing urban state transport undertaking in India.”

If the BMTC Managing Director Upendra Tripathy, 51, has his way, commuting in India’s Silicon Valley may soon turn into a joyride. He has also proposed creating a dedicated bus lane called the Bus Rapid Transit corridor and a Rs 38-crore seven-floor traffic transit centre to monitor and reduce traffic snarls.

Managing Director Upendra Tripathy
Managing Director Upendra Tripathy
The corporation recorded a minuscule 0.14 accidents per one lakh km rate which is the lowest in the country. Today, the buses ply one million km and carry three million passengers daily. “With Bangalore’s population expected to touch eight million, I hope to run two million km and carry six million people a day,” Tripathy says.

Of the corporation’s 4,700 buses close to 1,200 are now fitted with a GPS device which comes in handy not only in regulating speed and monitoring their movement, but also helps them recover in case of theft. Not just this, the managers at all the 35 Bangalore depots keep their chief posted about the operations of the buses through an e-mail.

“No matter where I am, I still get to know the status of my buses on a daily basis,” says Tripathy, who also is pursuing a doctorate on the political economy of India’s ozone management policy from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

The corporation’s recent track record has attracted the attention of the World Bank which is conducting a study on the BMTC model. It is also vying for an environment-friendly tag with initial plans to operate 280 buses on bio-diesel and earn carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol. Evidently, the day when all its buses run on eco-friendly fuel and public accolades is not far off.Steering a roadworthy story
Stephen David
February 21, 2008
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For a harried city traveller, the idea of utopia—a smooth ride with minimum stoppage at traffic lights—is doomed to remain just that. With millions of cars being added on roads every year and public transport a near failure in the best Indian cities, decongestion of roads looks like a distant dream.

In the country’s cyber capital, Bangalore, narrow roads and two-million twowheelers made for a nightmare combination and national headlines. But the remodelled Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has to rectify the situation.

In a bid to encourage public transport, it has introduced a slew of passenger-friendly initiatives like smart pre-paid cards, global positioning systems (GPS) in buses and, unbelievably posted a profit of Rs 224 crore in 2006-07. A recent report in the Indian Journal of Transport Management declared: “the BMTC is the best-performing urban state transport undertaking in India.”

If the BMTC Managing Director Upendra Tripathy, 51, has his way, commuting in India’s Silicon Valley may soon turn into a joyride. He has also proposed creating a dedicated bus lane called the Bus Rapid Transit corridor and a Rs 38-crore seven-floor traffic transit centre to monitor and reduce traffic snarls.

Managing Director Upendra Tripathy
Managing Director Upendra Tripathy
The corporation recorded a minuscule 0.14 accidents per one lakh km rate which is the lowest in the country. Today, the buses ply one million km and carry three million passengers daily. “With Bangalore’s population expected to touch eight million, I hope to run two million km and carry six million people a day,” Tripathy says.

Of the corporation’s 4,700 buses close to 1,200 are now fitted with a GPS device which comes in handy not only in regulating speed and monitoring their movement, but also helps them recover in case of theft. Not just this, the managers at all the 35 Bangalore depots keep their chief posted about the operations of the buses through an e-mail.

“No matter where I am, I still get to know the status of my buses on a daily basis,” says Tripathy, who also is pursuing a doctorate on the political economy of India’s ozone management policy from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

The corporation’s recent track record has attracted the attention of the World Bank which is conducting a study on the BMTC model. It is also vying for an environment-friendly tag with initial plans to operate 280 buses on bio-diesel and earn carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol. Evidently, the day when all its buses run on eco-friendly fuel and public accolades is not far off.