The BMTC is launching the Kendriyasarige, a bus service that will serve Bengaluru's central business district, and the Big 10 service that will be a direct route connecting 10 major roads in the city to the outer ring roads.

The BMTC has adopted some of the suggestions given in the ABIDe report on transport and has taken the initiative to apply them even before the government asks them to do so.

"The new launches are definitely going to benefit public transport system, thus, the earlier we do it the better it is," says P S Sandhu, Director, BMTC. He thinks that unless the suggestions in the ABIDe reports are put into action, they will always remain on paper.

Stoppages for the HOHO service (pic courtesy: ABIDe)

The Kendriyasarige is a bus service, also called the Hop on Hop off (HOHO) bus service, will run in the central business district only. The route covers the whole area from the Police Housing Corporation, Hosmat Hospital to Trinity Circle. Almost 20 bus stops in the anti-clockwise manner and around 13 clockwise are planned. Nine air-conditioned Volvo buses will run clockwise and anti-clockwise in this circle itself. The longest trip on this route will take a maximum of 20 minutes.

There will be nine buses running every hour on the route. Bus frequency at the stops varies from three to seven minutes. At the same time the BBMP has decided to improve the pedestrian side-walks so that it becomes easier for people to reach the bus stops. These buses will also offer the lowest fare among all Volvo buses till date (the exact amount to be decided).

This is just the first step; more such services are planned elsewhere in the city to allow optimum use of the buses and public transport on the whole.

The other service to be launched - the Big 10 service, is a bus service that will connect 10 major roads to the outer ring road of the city. These 10 big roads are Tumkur Road, Hosur Road, Bannerghatta Road, Kanakpura Road, Mysore Road, Bellary Road, Magadi Road, Sarjapur Road, Old Madras Road and HAL Airport Road. Commuters need not take longer routes by going either to Majestic or to city market bus stations and change buses to reach their respective outer ring roads.

The new BMTC services are taking off from reports released by sub-groups from Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa's Agenda for Bangalore Infrastructure and Development task force (ABIDe). These reports, containing recommendations and written by ABIDe members, are titled Govern Bengaluru, Road Traffic Management & Transportation (RTMT), urban poor, and secure Bengaluru. They have been published online recently and are available for public scrutiny.

Supriya Khandekar is a staff journalist at Citizen Matters

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