Yesterday, I got a chance to travel in a BRTS bus, a buzzing word these days in our city, Ahmedabad. People seem to be excited about it, especially the commuters who rely on the public transport system for their daily commute. Well, the BRTS service was launched in our city 5 months back and has been proving an efficient means of transport, but I got the chance to travel on it only late yesterday when I was returning back to home from my office as I had no vehicle with me.
For those who don’t know what BRTS stands for, its called Bus Rapid Transit System. It’s a public transport means designed for people traveling within the city, and to connect long distances. The system was designed to provide fast, frequent and safe transportation facility to people. The project was done under the heading “JanMarg” which means “People’s way”.
Overall the drive was comfortable with almost no waiting for the bus, as the frequency of the bus was pretty good. The bus stop too is well designed and kept clean with good sitting facility. This has to be mentioned specially because in India most of such places are very unclean with almost no maintenance, but this is a good sign of how modern India is coming up. The bus runs on a specially designed track which runs through the middle of the main road and is fenced from both the sides with iron railings to avoid other mix traffic coming into the way of the bus. This allows the bus to travel fast with almost no traffic on its way, thus reaching to its destination at a faster pace compared to the regular city buses (yes, we have them too) running on the regular tracks.
The bus too is well designed and clean, with adequate boarding capacity and sitting facility so that there is less congestion during peak hours. The bus door alignment with the pickup point at the bus stop is perfectly matched so that entering or exiting from the bus is smooth and easy even for the aged people who generally had hard time climbing up the old regular city buses.
The electronic display inside the bus gave up to date information in three languages (Hindi, Gujarati and English) about the next bus stops with even voice announcement so that passengers can get ready to for their drop out.
It was great 30 mins travel from office to my drop station with absolutely no tiredness that I generally felt while traveling on my own bike. Such kind of solid transport system can definitely reduce traffics on road as people would be encouraged to travel through such system if the system is punctual on time and frequent and reaching to most of the places. I am sure no one wants to travel through the narrow roads of Ahmedabad that are over-crowded with all kinds of vehicles and rampant drives of those auto-rickshaw drivers.
I see many far-reaching benefits of such kind of transport system in India provided they are maintained properly:
- Reduction in traffic on roads
- Reduction in pollution levels
- Quick and safe travel with less number of accidents
- Economic with less expense on personal vehicles, fuels and maintenance.
I would like to congratulate my city and the corporation in bringing up such kind of system, and it becomes not only the role and responsibility of the the Government to maintain it but also we as citizens have to part to play to keep the good work going. You can find more information about BRTS on this website.