BIG10: Good idea, better execution

BIG10: Good idea, better execution
Ashwin Mahesh


In the second week of February, the chief minister inaugurated new direction-based bus services in Bangalore, known as Kendra Saarige and Big10. This was the first major initiative of the ABIDe task force. Since the launch, until the end of March, BMTC added roughly two buses every day to develop and deploy this system. Now that 100 Big10 buses have been on the road for over a month, it is time to reflect on some of the early lessons.
First, a brief introduction for those not familiar with this. Big10 buses, in distinctive green colour and the large bilingual Big10 brand, run on the 10 major arterial roads leading in and out of the city — Hosur Road, Bannerghatta Road, Kanakapura Road, Mysore Road, Magadi Road, Tumkur Road, Bellary Road, Old Madras Road, HAL Airport Road, and Sarjapur Road. The service connects outlying suburbs to the city centre in a direct-line service.
So, no matter where you are in the city, it is now easy to travel to the important areas in the core. Within the central areas, Kendra Saarige service, a circulator covering important areas on air-conditioned Volvo buses in both directions (clockwise as well as anticlockwise), provides local connectivity.
Why is this important? Big10 service is a completely new way of operating bus transport in India — we have so far been following a destination-based service where people wait at bus stops for the specific bus that will take them somewhere. This is inefficient. Instead, we need a direction-based service, where you can take the first bus that goes in the direction of your journey, and have more choices closer to your destination and that’s what Big10 attempts to put this in place.
There are also two important advantages, critical to any bus system. Big10 service is understandable — the bus travels the full length of the Big10 road, so there is no guesswork about its path. And it’s predictable — the bus will come every 10 minutes or so on the road, and more frequently during peak hours. So, it is now possible to plan your trip around it. As more buses are produced, the frequency of service will get even better, dramatically reducing waiting times. We can also experiment with air-conditioned Big10 service, as well as even longer routes.
Lessons so FAR
Putting 100 new branded vehicles on the road (116, in fact, counting the blue and orange Kendra Saarige buses too) in such a short time is a remarkable achievement. The production chain for these buses, and planning for deployment on major roads has been swift, and worthy of praise. It shows what’s possible in public service, once a clearly identified plan and purpose are in place.
Second, communicating the availability of the new service is important. In the early days, with only a few buses on the road, people mistook these for private vehicles, and didn’t use them. With increasing awareness, there has been good patronage. The first two services — on
Hosur Road and
H A L
Airport Road — are seeing very good usage. Remember that these services do not go to the traditional transit stations at Shivajinagar or Shantinagar, and it is immediately apparent there is latent demand for such understandable and direct services.
The third lesson comes from Kendra Saarige. In the initial weeks, BMTC ran a limited service using only a few buses. The usage was low. Once the full lot of branded vehicles was delivered to BMTC by Volvo, the service was expanded to cover more areas, and immediately more popular. I think Kendra Saarige can become an important backbone in core areas, greatly removing the need for personal transport.
The fourth lesson is about public participation and feedback. From the beginning, BMTC and BTIS (the Bangalore Transport Information System) have received phenomenal feedback. These have been incorporated into the design of the services. This shows when we put our minds together, we can develop a much broader range of positive ideas.
More to COME
Direction-based services need more components. In individual neighbourhoods, we need local loop services (e.g. a Jayanagar Saarige, Whitefield Saarige, and so on) which can connect areas in short loops that are efficient for local mobility. Also, these must additionally function as feeder services that connect to the Big10 roads.We will also need circular services around the city to complement Big10. We can think of the Inner Ring Road and Outer Ring Road as two circles on which we can introduced similar, branded, high-frequency services. Once that is in place, the grid will be more complete. We can also try to make Big10 services mimic Metro rail networks, by connecting pairs of Big10 to each other in a long service.
This will require other reforms too. Ticketing must also be integrated so that a single ticket is sufficient for a complete journey, even if the trip includes a transfer at some point. Transit points have to be safer, better designed, and more welcoming. Some priority paths could also be established for buses at select locations, and parking could be priced effectively. There is a lot to look forward to.
(Ashwin Mahesh is a member of the ABIDe task force and co-author of its transportation plan)