Bangalore’s bus connectivity lopsided

Bangalore’s bus connectivity lopsided
Bangalore, DH News Service:

Even if the Namma Metro is operational by September 2012, a majority of Bangaloreans will still have to rely on public transport to ferry them to the nearest metro point.


This loophole in connectivity has been revealed by a report by the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT), which shows that five of the eight Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) zones have a lopsided bus network.

The Bangalore Mobility Index prepared by DULT says these five zones have less than 50 per cent connectivity in relation to the fleet of buses that exists in the City.

Due to this imbalance, the average work trip time taken by 75 per cent of population is nearly 30 minutes, each way. Bangalore has 5,441 buses for a population of 68 lakh passengers.

This statistic was arrived at on the basis of a City Bus Supply Index formulated by adding the public and private bus fleet for every one lakh people. Keeping this as the base, by the Centre for Road Transport (CIRT, Pune) estimates, the bus supply index needs to be about 50 for any city. In the case of Bangalore, the index is placed at 80. But here lies the problem.

While there is a sizeable fleet of buses to connect the City, the routes taken by these buses are not equitable. As the City expands, buses have been unable to cover all the areas of Bangalore.

The old zones and the core areas have excellent coverage, while the outlying regions and newer locations added to the Palike have been lagging behind.

90 per cent coverage

Zone 1 (which covers Bangalore West) and Zone 3 (Bangalore South) are the two areas that have over 90 per cent public transport coverage.

The rest of the zones have a poor coverage, with a percentage of 31 to 43.
The average coverage of the Public Transport Service stands at 56 per cent.