In a move to decongest traffic Bangalore City traffic and improve connectivity between the various cities and the suburbs, the State Government has proposed to purchase 4,684 buses and develop infrastructure at an estimated cost of Rs 2919 crore.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who launched BIG Trunk Bus Services of the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) at the Vidhana Soudha, said a proposal was given to the Centre seeking 2500 buses to Bangalore City under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). BMTC launched 62 BIG Trunk buses.
He said a total of 4684 buses would be purchased to provide increased connectivity to various districts and towns and cities within districts. The estimated cost for purchase of buses has been put at Rs 2063 crore. A sum of Rs 856 crore would be required to construct workshops, bus-stands, bus depots and other infrastructure.
The Chief Minister said Bangalore has a total of nearly 2400 bus routes. This is significantly higher than other cities of similar size and with similar bus ridership number such as Seoul (500 routes). London (700 routes) and Shanghai (1000 routes).
To begin with, BMTC would operate 62 Big Trunk buses between Kempe Gowda Bus Station and Electronic City, KBS and Chandapura and KBS and Attibele Circle. The route has been designated as “Trunk 3” and a bus will arrive every two to three minutes at designated bus stops in suburban centres.
To simplify identification, such buses will be marked with their designated routes followed by the first alphabet of the suburban destination. So a Big trunk from KBS to Electronic City will be marked as 3E, KBS to Chandapura 3C and KBS to Attibele 3A. Further, passengers may proceed to their respective villages using another batch of 40 feeder buses that will run every 10 to 20 minutes," said BMTC managing director Anjum Parwez.
Sources in BMTC said the project aims to increase local connectivity with minimum change of buses, thereby, encouraging more people to use public transport.
