BMTC plans Bus Day to popularise commuting by bus

BMTC plans Bus Day to popularise commuting by bus

Staff Reporter
It will be on the fourth of every month
The move is to discourage use of private vehicles and reduce road accidents

Survey on to invite suggestions from the public to make commuting comfortable

BANGALORE: Among several “Days” to mark special events, the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has decided to add one more — Bus Day — on the 4th of every month starting from February.

The move is aimed at popularising public transport and discouraging use of private vehicles that result in reduced air pollution and road accidents. The main objective of Bus Day is to see what service improvements could be made by BMTC to wean people away from private modes of transport onto buses.

To begin with, the corporation has identified two IT corridors — Electronics City and Information Technology Park Ltd., to launch the pilot Bus Day on February 4, said Secretary to Government (Transport Department) M.K. Shankaralinge Gowda.

Speaking to presspersons at the BMTC Central Office here on Tuesday, Mr. Gowda said the corporation was in touch with a number of information technology companies to persuade their employees to make Bus Day a success. On the particular day, the corporation will operate buses at high frequency on these corridors. Besides this, depending upon requests, BMTC will arrange group pick-up and group drops for employees nearest to their destination, Mr. Gowda said.

Depending upon the feedback and commuter response to the pilot programme, the BMTC will extend the programme to all major corridors in the city. Every month, one day will thus be observed as Bus Day, said BMTC Managing Director Syed Zameer Pasha. The pilot project will serve as a test case to understand the needs of the commuting public for service improvement and also to raise awareness on public transport.

Mr. Pasha said the corporation was conducting a survey to invite suggestions from the public to make commuting comfortable through suitable arrangements. “What we envisage with the Bus Day is what we want for the future — more and more people travelling by bus. Therefore we request people to leave a little early and take the bus to work to enjoy a comfortable and quick commute by bus,” Mr. Pasha said.

BMTC Director (Projects) P.K. Garg and Director (Technical) S.K. Paramesh were present.