City Connect for fliers' comfort

City Connect for fliers' comfort
By S Praveen Dhaneshkar, DH News Service, Bangalore:
The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has earned accolades for introducing an exclusive bus service to the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) through its 40 Vayu Vajra buses that offer air-conditioned comfort, safety and affordability to passengers...


Deccan Herald posed a few questions to BMTC Managing Director Upendra Tripathy on public response to the service. Excerpts from the interview:

The BIAS (Bangalore International Airport Service) has completed ten days of operations. How does BMTC judge public opinion?

Public response to the service has been good. So far about 22,500 passengers have used Vayu Vajra buses in 900 trips to BIA.

What is City Connect?

The scheme envisages a seamless high quality, but economic land connectivity between the city and the new airport through an interface of bus and feeder taxi service. A person travelling between the city and the airport can avail a feeder taxi facility to take care of the travel between the place of stay and the nearest BIAL service pickup and drop point.

How does the system work?

The airport passenger can call Cell Cab (Tel No: 080-60609090) or SGL Tours and Travels (Tel No: 080-42994399) for a taxi under City Connect scheme. It costs just Rs 100/Rs 125 for four and Rs 235/- for six people to travel.

However, the drop point i.e., the nearest BIAL service bus stop, will be of the taxi driver's choice. Availing the feeder taxi service also entitles you for a 25 percent rebate on bus fare to BIA.

To ensure seat availability in the bus you can avail advanced reservation facility offered on this service by Via World online or offline day or hours in advance (latest by 4 hrs in advance). This will cost you just Rs 5 extra.

Can passengers book seats in the bus via internet?

Yes. You have to log on to www.bmtcinfo.com and click on the VIA (Flight Raja) link or directly log on to www.viaworld.in or call 080-41431000 select your bus route, place of boarding seat etc, pass on the information on internet or through telephone, make payment through credit card, if online or cash.

Any new schemes in the offing?

Yes, we are planning to add 20 more buses on routes having high potential. BMTC is also contemplating introduction of an ‘Auto Connect’ scheme to the BIA buses. We plan to rope in 10,000 autos to pick-up passengers and drop them at the bus stop. These autos will be GPS enabled and issue a ticket/pass of Rs 30 as fixed fare.