Saving Volvo
Sad to see news saying the new Volvo service is a lose in Trivandrum. But who is to blame? To make it a success, only one way exist – to get people in it! And for that what exactly is Ksrtc/Corporation doing other than blabbering the who and what about Volvo service in Eastfort bus station? First of all Volvo service aims at people who are currently having a car or anyother form of transportation. To get them leave their cars and start using Volvo service, here are a few points that Ksrtc and Trivandrum corporation must do.
1. People are time conscious: They are to a very extend! And from my experience with Volvo, this is something KSRTC have to take care of first. People are ready to wait 5 or 10 minutes for a late service, but the frustration builds when they know that the bus they are waiting for left the stop 5 minutes before the said schedule. Running in schedule is a hard thing to ask for given the traffic chaos in City. But atleast they can try not to run ahead the schedule.
2.Parking Lots: You can’t expect people to walk up to the bus stops to take Volvo considering the very few points of the city it touches. For a person coming from Karamana or Vazhuthacaud, who wants to go to Technopark, how he is supposed to reach the nearest boarding point? Auto rickshaws are out of question, and an ordinary bus will be suicidal during rush hours. All we ask for is an ample parking space near major boarding points. I am sure people are ready to pay for it.
3. When is the next Volvo? : This is a question I hear from a lot of people, and as of now I am clueless. KSRTC must publish the official timings. The one they did needs a cryptography expert to solve. It has to be clear with when a bus to where will reach which stop. This alone will gain atleast 10% extra passengers. KSRTC can put this information in bus stops too as this saves many doubtful passengers.
4. Frequency: This has to be done once we add more to the fleet. The frequency of buses is an important factor. If I have to reach a point at 8.30 AM, I wont be ready to take a bus which will be there at 8.00 AM or 9.00 AM. We have better needs with time rather than waiting at a closed office. So making the service more frequent will draw more such passengers to the service. A service once every 15 minutes is ideal. Make it at least once every 30 minutes. We can find excuses for the lost 15 minutes.
I bet you KSRTC, once you make these changes you will run in green with Volvo service. And yea, add more routes to service.
For the clueless, here is the current Vovlo time chart from KSRTC.
Update: TDF (Trivandrum Development Front) has already submitted a memorandum to the authorities with similar needs. The copy of the memorandum can be obtained here: Tribiz News & Events.
Photo courtesy: TrivandrumBuzz / Technopark today
Related Posts
17 Comments
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- uberVU - social comments - Social comments and analytics for this post... This post was mentioned on Twitter by TvmLife: Posted: "Saving Volvo" http://tvmlife.com/saving-volvo/ #Trivandrum...
- My week for 2010-01-31 « Srijith.V - [...] @TvmLife Posted: "Saving Volvo" http://tvmlife.com/saving-volvo/ #Trivandrum [...]
Loading ...
Exactly the KSRTC and the corparation should take responsibilties to handle this. I have seen 2 vovlo buses running in the same direction together. So if the KSRTC can;t have a solution let’s do something which can save the volvo of TVM
I agree on what you have pointed out Srijith. Reliability is the key word here. Last week, I’ve noticed the bus starting off from the Airport without any passengers. The flight had just landed and people were yet to come out of the lounge. They could have got at least 10 passengers had they waited for, say 2-3 minutes. Now, this brings to the question of the commitment of the employees. From what I know, the JnNURM officials were dead against handing out the opportunity of operating the new buses to KSRTC (in both TVM and Cochin). They wanted a consortium between the LSGD/Corporation/civic bodies/KSRTC to be formed to operate the service. However, KSRTC did not agree to this and bullied its way to manage the buses. Probably the officials were right, looking at the way the KSRTC is operating the buses at present!
Good suggestions, Srijith. TDF has already submitted a detailed memorandum to the Transport Minister, Mayor, CM, Minister Vijayakumar and others. You can see the list on the TDF website. Pretty much the same as yours! One good thing is that there will be a route revision, timing boards and an SPV soon.
Let’s make this work.
@ Aravind & Biju: True! They should start learning from private bus operators. Dedication for success is the key! It must start from the lower level of employees. And some concession in timing have to be done from higher level to make it happen.
@ Ajay: Another great initiative from TDF. As always, TvmLife supports the move with full heart. I am linking the memorandum link to the article.
@Ajay Indeed great work that memorandum was given. Lets try out hard to make these things happen practically.Someone needs to take initiavites, so if its not the authoroties lets us take that initiative.
Good post and nice way of thinking. pls visit ksrtcblog.com for more updates about kerala rtc.
regards
May I add my 0.02$ please.
The services may be seeing red on the balance sheet now, but aren’t many people reacting a bit too harshly to the Volvo services? I’m not talking about your article Sreejith, this is a good, realistic and pragmatic one which MUST BE DONE for the betterment of the services. But I think we have to wait for the whole JNNURM buses to start plying to evaluate the system.
We can’t ask ‘Green or Red?’ by just considering 5 buses as a business unit and evaluating them. Perhaps when adding on the Diesel charges, service charges and all these things the services may be a loss, the timings may be erratic and the system may not be efficient. Lets wait for all the 150 buses to hit the roads and a reliable and consistent time-table and route-map evolve for the buses. Then it will be easier for the public and KSRTC to support each other. I don’t think its possible now with just 5-6 buses with one or two often out of service due to many reasons.
If you guys remember, the Volvo services began disastrously in Bangalore too but see how efficient the system is now when the no: of buses and services increased and a solid routine was put in place.
I agree with that. Benchmarking something which is running on 10% of the planned system is pure evil!
But the points said in the post are something which can be done in the initial phase itself, make people used to it and when more buses comes, people wont shy away from it. The post was inspired from the article in Mathrubhumi saying something like “KSRTC will think twice before accepting more Volvo, which are now ready to deliver from Bangalore factory.” This attitude of officials have to be changed.
I started replying to this post, and it end up as blog.
http://anish-mohan.blogspot.com/2010/01/saving-volvo-bus.html
Anish, sorry to say, but I wont agree with your view. Making Volvo services for students is not practicable. I believe you tried to relate it to Microsoft’s business model. But the scenario is different. Volvo itself is aimed to reduce traffic – which means reducing cars/bikes from the road and move them to public transport. So drawing school/college students which are already using the public transport is not a way. More Volvo have to be put in service.
Saving volvo is the topic. “So drawing school/college students which are already using the public transport..” makes sense to increase revenue even at concession rate.
Every common man wishes he owns a car. So you can’t blame them.
For reducing traffic we need circular/chain services plying not more than 15km in a single trip. So ppl travelling in city can use chain service after parking vehicle in park lot.
So there may be a park lot, next to major bus station in city. This is irrelevant to ‘Saving volvo’.
@scorpiogenius:well its a valid point what u have mentioned, but Kerala is something where we cannot take anything for granted especialy when it come to TVM. I feel strongly that for all the 150 buses to hit roads, it will mainly depend on the outcome of this first phase, See our adminstration these people are not gutsy to face a bad situation and then convert the same situation in to good one. So being a well wisher for this great city we cannot hold ourselves back and wait until everything happens.”PREVENTION is better than CURE”.
KSRTC got the Trivandrum Volvos by paying 10% of the cost – which is miniscule. The operating cost of a Volvo cannot be much more than 1.5 times that of an ordinary bus. KSRTC is price gouging people in making this service more expensive than it ought to be. And is raising a huge ruckus.
KSRTC is a stupid organization. Trivandrum has 999 route numbers, not including the A/B/C/D etc, and it does it all with 300 buses. or 400. Indias biggest cities do not have these many routes or route numbers. Trying to change KSRTC is not something that should be attempted.
They are going to get another 120 buses (the Semi Low Floor ones) again for 10% price. They would again run it on profitable and other routes.
We need a transit authority that would fix routes, bring the arterial routes to under 100, make sure that each route has proper frequency, and run an efficient service. Currently, a KSRTC bus from EF to Kattakada, Neyyattinkara or Nedumancaud has a route number, but one from Thampanoor would not. And the private buses never had them.
Our public transport needs have to be provided by an able organization, and KSRTC is not that.
On 2 of the new Volvo Routes, both endpoints were “new” – no red buses start from Kaudiar/Sasthamangalam or Airport. If they run red buses on those routes and analyze them, that would be a lot of red ink too..
I fully agree not to conclude with just 5% bus plying. Lets wait for the remaining buses to come. Also KSRTC should rationalise the route and should cater to more populated route. May be once new buses comes, we can see more frequent buses and people will start accepting them. Lets wait
There are ways to save the volvo b9r’s.
(1)Ply them in more practical routes where there is much passenger movement. eg. Trivandrum – neyyattinkara.
(2)Make a new company as TMTC or Trivandrum Metro Transport Corporation. and make all the volvo’s , NoN A/c Low Floor’s and Ananthapuri buses under this company so that if one makes a loss also the other could neutralize this loss.
1) The minimum cost should be brought down to something like Rs. 5. Currently, short distance travelers in Trivandrum are reluctant to get into JnNURM volvos because, 10 rupees for a 2 minute ride, which would otherwise cost just Rs3.50, feels too expensive.
2) A website — with apps to get the bus timings, routs, search, maps, etc. — should be launched, as the the buses are targeting techies at Technopark and Tourists. Both BMTC (www.bmtcinfo.com) and MTC(Chennai) (www.mtcbus.org) have excellent applications in their websites.
A shocking news !!!
Trivandrum has only 16 buses whereas Cochin has 41 !!
How appalling !
Trivandrum needs more arterial roads rather than the tiny link roads which can be seen today !