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Public Transport System

(31/08/2011)

Suggest Bus Routes

(Added on 04/04/2008 updated 10/05/2008 pcg)

Cars verses Buses

(i) Cars carry mostly one passenger at a time while bus carries about 50 Passengers.Bus occupies about 4 times the road space occupied by a car. Thus buses are about 12.5 times more efficient than cars as for as road space utilization per passenger is concerned.

(ii) Bus is driven by one driver and one conductor. Cars may be self-driven or chauffer driven. Taking the ratio to be 50% each, for carrying 100 passengers, cars need 50 drivers, while buses will need only two drivers and two conductors. Thus as for as manpower required is concerned, buses are again about 12.5 times more efficient than cars.

(iii) I can understand that maintenance cost per passenger km vise also buses must have the same advantage over the cars.

(iv) Fuel cost vise, a car normally gives about 15 km per liter of petrol/diesel. While buses give about 5 km per liter of Diesel. Thus fuel cost for cars per passenger km is 1/15= 0.066 liters while that for buses is 1/5*50= 0.004 liters only. Thus fuel cost vise buses are about 16.5 times more efficient.

(v) In addition one should not forget the tension of self-driving. There is hardly any car, which does not meet with some sort of accident in a year.

(vi) Overall, car cost per passenger km may be about Rs. 8. While by bus it may be about Rs. 0.50 only.

Why people prefer to use their own cars instead of travel by bus?

(i) There being no direct bus service from starting point to destination of the passenger.

(ii)Bus stop being too far off the starting point or destination point of the passenger.

(iii)Insufficient frequency of bus service or timings not suiting

(iv) Buses being over crowded.

(v)Shabby condition of the buses.

(vi)Lot of luggage to be carried by the passenger.

(vii) Passenger may be status conscious, thus prefers car travel than bus travel.

(viii) Passenger does not feel safe to travel in public company.

It may be seen that number of persons, using cars due to reasons (vi), (vii) or (viii) above are far too less than the number of persons using cars due to reasons (i) to (v) above. This is specially true for NCR.

Result

There is no space on the roads. More and more cars are added every year. Number of passengers are shifting from bus travel to car travel every year. There are frequent jams, resulting in almost doubling the travel time, also leading to accidents and road rage cases. Precious fuel is wasted. People have to spend a major part of their earnings and maintaining and running their cars. Sometimes it is as much as 20% of their total income.

Who is responsible?

It is the administration (Govt.). They will neither do anything themselves nor let others do.

What is the solution?

Solution lies in making the need for cars redundant so that there is no need to put restrictions on introduction of cars. So public transport system needs to be strengthened not incrementally but multiple times.

Simply put,

(i) Increase existing number of buses to double the number. At current level of passengers, it may ensure a seat for most of the passengers most of the times which will eliminate one of the major causes for preferring car travel.

(ii) Rationolise the bus routes, frequency, timings and stoppages so that it is convenient to use the buses.

(iii)Another 50% increase in buses of better quality will surely make most of the car users { those who use cars for reasons (i) to (v)} shift from cars to bus service.

(iv) NCR Govts. have to think of the passengers more than their own infighting and politics.

(v) One good thing is introduction of Metro Rail. Bus routes should be such that one is able to reach the nearest metro station with least amount of walking from his residence or office or commercial place, or railway station or bus stand or hospital or school etc. and without waiting for more than 5 to 10 minutes for the bus.

(vi) Buses should serve interstate within NCR. In case Govts. are too adamant to cooperate, well designed, passenger friendly bus-changing terminals should be constructed at the borders.

(vii) Buses should get priority of passage over cars as they carry more passengers.

(viii)Public should have complete information regarding all the bus routes and timings and frequency of bus service on each route within the NCR.

(ix) A system may be introduced where in daily passengers may put in their requirement giving the starting point, destination point and starting timings. Bus routes may be adjusted to accommodate most of them.

(x) If the Govts. have the excuse of not having enough money, they should allow private participation.

(xi) In Gurgaon, it is almost impossible to live without a car. Govt. should act without delay.

(xi)10/05/2008

There was a good news in todays paper that Delhi is buying about 1500 buses for the Common wealth Games. If Haryana and UP also purchase about 1000 buses each, which may be bought before the Games say just after about six months from now, the problem of increasing number of cars in NCR can be overcome completely.Immediate action is required to be taken. Work for finalising the routes on the basis of information collected from public should start immediately. Public requirements may be collected through net. In the meanwhile buses arranged.The day the buses are introduced a certain number of cars should be put off the road say on 1st,11th,21st of the month all cars with last digit of their number as 1 should be off road, on 2nd,12th,22nd of the month all cars with last number as 2 should be off road and so on. This will take minimum 10% of the cars off road on any day. Moreover many more persons will leave their cars at home and prefer bus travel.

(xi)05/07/2008

There is a good news. Delhi Govt. and Haryana Govt has entered in an aggreement that Haryana roadways can run about 1.6 lac kms in Delhi territory while Delhi can run about 1.9 lac kms in haryana territory every day.

It is the right time to make full use of it.

Following is suggested:

1. Buses continuosly on move between Rajiv Chowk Gurgaon to Dhaula Kuan Delhi. Round trip takes a little more than 1 hr. For a frequency of 5 mts 12 to 16 number of buses may be put on the route.

2. Buses continuosly on move between IFFCO Chowk Gurgaon to Kutub Minar. Again round trip takes a little more than 1 hr.For a frequency of 5 mts, 12 to 16 buses may be put on the route.

3. Bus stop Gurgaon to New Delhi Rly Station via Canaut Palace and back. Round trip may take a little more than two hours. For a frquency of 10 mts, about 12 to 14 buses may be put on the route. Minimum ticket for the bus should be the fare from Gurgaon to Dhaula kuan plus a little more. This is to discourage the short distance passengers who should make use of the buses running upto Dhaula kuan.These may even have only one fare for dropping any where on enroute stoppage.

4. Bus stop Gurgaon to Old Delhi Rly Station and back via Mehrauli, Aims, India Gate, ITO. Round trip may take about 3hr 30 mts. For a frequency of 10 mts, 21 buses will be required. Again the minimum ticket should be the fare from gurgaon to AIIms. This is to discourage the short distance passengers who should make use of the buses running upto mehrauli.

5. Bus stop Gurgaon to ISBT via Sarai Kale Khan. Round trip will take about 4 hours. For a frequency of 10 mts, 24 buses may be put on this route. Suitably fixing the minimum fare to discourage the short distance travellers.

6. Gurgaon to Karol Bag and back. Round trip takes about 1 hr 40 mts. For a frequency of about 10 mts, 10 buses will be required.

7.Gurgaon to the nearest metro station i.e. Dwarka. Round trip takes about 50 Mts. Frequency desired 2.5 mts. 20 buses may be put on this route from various points in gurgaon like, hero honda chowk, sector 57, bus stand, rajiv chowk,some buses may follow the old delhi road while others may follow NH8.

8. Buses starting from Bus stand gurgaon may also be distributed to other terminuses like hero honda chowk, sector 57 etc.

9. Gurgaon to Noida Greater Noida via Meharauli, Badarpur.Round trip will take about 4 hrs. For a frequency of about 10 mts, 24 buses may be put on this route.Minimum fare should be suitably fixed.

10 Also buses starting from bus stand may be distributed to follow the jharsa road / Civil lines Rd to get on to NH8.

11. Lots of buses should be introduced to run on Gurgaon roads, so that one can travel from any part of Gurgaon to any other part conveniently.

12. Constant watch should be kept on the usage of these bus routes. Wherever traffic is found to be more, Number of buses shoud be increased. It is suggested that number of buses on any route should not be less than suggested above. Authority to receive suggestions from public should be suitably displayed on prominent places.