Public transport has to be the best option

On Independence Day, the Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) offered a free ride to citizens on all its buses. The response was overwhelming – some 6.15 million people opted to commute by bus that day as against the daily average ridership of 2.8 million passengers. It goes to show that people are eager to avail public transport if it is available, affordable and convenient. The government must grasp the change in attitudes toward urban mobility and grab the opportunity it presents to push the city toward public transport to save fuel costs for individuals and the country, decongest city traffic, and save the environment. In the transition from socialist-era BTS to corporatisation-era BMTC, the objective shifted in the early 2000s from offering mobility as a public utility to earning profits from transport corporations, albeit unsuccessfully. But the attitude toward urban mobility has changed over the last decade, given the multiple benefits if it works. While it is important to run BMTC efficiently, its overarching objective must be to address Bengaluru’s mobility problems for the larger public good. Successive governments have, however, laid stress on widening roads and building flyovers and underpasses to cater to the city’s vocal elite and upper middle classes, incentivising car-users and merely moving traffic bottlenecks a little further down the road rather than eliminating them.

In 2020, Luxembourg became the first nation to make public transport free throughout its territory on buses, trains and trams. Faced with fuel shortages and rising prices due to Russia’s war on Ukraine, Germany in June introduced a cheap (9-euros) monthly pass for commuters to use on any mode of public transport. Germans have since taken to public transport in large numbers. Of course, research in some countries has indicated that it is largely pedestrians and cyclists who take advantage of free or cheap public transport. Few car-users tend to make the shift merely for reasons of cost if public transport systems are broken, as it is in Bengaluru.

What is needed in Bengaluru, therefore, is an integrated public transport system across buses, the metro rail, autos and taxis, and the upcoming suburban rail system to enable seamless transition from one to another across the metropolis, with assured first-mile and last-mile connectivity. Such a system would eliminate the need for people to take out their cars. Once such a system is put in place, the use of cars may be further disincentivised with a congestion charge and other levies. This is the goal the BMTC and the city as a whole must work toward. A comprehensive, durable urban mobility policy must be evolved as a first step.