Black hole bus

“Over the years, ridership on the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) buses has decreased, and slipped further down in February, possibly due to the fare hike. With yet another round of increase in fares slated to come into force from Wednesday, the clientele can only get thinner, say experts.How many passengers has BEST lost over past 2 months? As per transport figures for the months of January and February, around 3 lakh passengers stopped using the public transport to their destinations. The data show that in January this year, a total of 35.77 lakh passengers were ferried by BEST buses daily to various corners of Mumbai and even outside city limits.”

http://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai/mumbai-all-best-bus-routes-stopped-making-profits-last-year/article1-1310037.aspx

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-fare-hike-today-loss-making-best-continues-to-lose-commuters-2073603

Mumbai has a bus service that was once its pride. The BEST service. It was a funny amalgamation of an electric supply company and a Bus service. The name is actually – Bombay Electric Supply and Transport – hence BEST. To start with I have no clue why an electric utility company and the bus transport company must be merged into one. They have no obvious synergies in management or in supply of raw materials. It’s not like the bus service run electric busses. I think this was a legacy of the Trams which ran on electricity as I could understand from this pargraphs.

“The Bombay Tramway Company Limited was formally set up in 1873. The Mumbai Municipality was given the right to buy up the concern after the first 25 years or after every period of 7 years thereafter. After this contract was entered into between the Bombay Tramway Company and the Municipality, the Government of Mumbai enacted the Bombay Tramways Act, 1874, under which the Company was licenced to run a tramway service in the city. The tram-cars were of two kinds-those drawn by one horse and those drawn by two. In 1905, a newly formed concern, “The Bombay Electric Supply & Tramways Company Limited?bought the Bombay Tramway Company and the first electrically operated tram-car appeared on Mumbai’s roads in 1907. The passing years aggravated the problem of rush-hour traffic and to ease the situation, double decker trams were introduced in September, 1920.

Mumbai saw its first bus run on 15th July, 1926. The people of Mumbai received the bus with enthusiasm, but it took quite sometime before this means of conveyance really established itself. For several years, it was looked upon as transport for the upper middle classes. Those were the days when the tram was the poor man’s transport, carried one all the way from Sassoon Dock to Dadar for a mere anna and a half, that was nine paise. The bus fare for the same journey was four annas, that is 25 paise.

…..

As regards BEST’s electric supply side, in the year 1905, the B.E.S.& T Co.Ltd., commenced the supply of electrical energy by erecting its own generating station with a total capacity of 4,300 KW. This was later abandoned in favour of a station of larger capacity constructed in 1912 at Kussara Basin. This station was closed down in 1925, after which all the Company’s requirements were obtained in bulk from M/s. Tata Hydro Electric Power Supply Co.Ltd, With the growth of the electrical distribution system, difficulties were experienced in the maintenance of the electrical pressure within the prescribed statutory limits. The Company than decided to establish two High Voltage Receiving Stations at Grant Road, and Apollo where large bulk supply transformers provided with on-load tap changing equipment had to be installed for maintaining regulated voltage at the consumer’s premises. These two new stations were, however, actually commissioned in 1949, i.e. after the B.E.S. & T Co.Ltd., was acquired by the Municipal Corporation.”

So fundamentally a transport company and an electric supply company being one is an anachronism that has no relevance in the present – but who knows – twenty or thirty years hence when electric vehicles become a reality – this may well be back in fashion. The proponents of the electric car often cite that the gasoline fueled car simply lost a temporary race in the early 1900’s and this century will only see its rise.

But still – I grew up wondering what BEST meant I remember still finding it very odd that the two were in one company. But hell. The BEST services haven’t improved one bit ever since I was a kid. It’s the same buses and the same conductors. Only the tickets changed. Now the conductor gives you a thermal paper ticket as opposed to the paper tickets of the era gone by. The crowd is crazy, the services are erratic – the bus routes are not clear and nothing really works well. Obviously the service is making losses. They introduced AC services at the start but only on certain routes. At first they had these stupid buses which looked like outstation travel buses. Then they moved on to nicer buses but these very severely limited. The majority of the buses in operation seem the same from when I wa s achild. To my mind they haven’t moved anywhere in the last 35 years. The iconic double decker made its exit but nothing else.

A transport company must understand its relevance every few years or so and must make adjustments accordingly. There is no point having large buses running through the day when you clearly have peak and off peak hours. The city earlier was very clearly structured on the north south axis. The buses simply had to go up and down. The business district was in the south and the suburbs were in the north with a large middle class working in the mills and staying in its vicinity in the centre. The bus routes were infinitely less complex. Now the complexity of the city has ensured that the conventional routes won’t work. I remember when Bhakti Park where I stay was coming up. It is in the middle of nowhere with almost no civilization three kms in either direction. Why would anyone live there?  But slowly the infrastructure came up. I remember my friends who were early adopters of the area making representations to the transport undertaking to start services. The service assured them that service would start if a certain threshold level of population comes in. That is a classical chicken and egg. But the BEST played dumb. They should have had smaller buses in operation with higher frequencies in the morning and evening. These need to be the simple feeder routes that simply took people and pushed them to the big bus stops or stations where people could hop off and hop on to their bigger buses which took them to their offices. The city was expanding on the east west axis and the bus services were not keeping pace. Why should the service not have efficient bus services with 20 seaters or even lower. The taxi guys started the share a cab services but they too are notoriously bad and are available only in certain places. The transport authority was best placed to handle this.

Also they don’t need to look too further to improve their services. They simply need to follow the UBER model and fit their buses with a smart phone. Now people will know exactly where their bus is and figure the best time to leave home to reach the bus stop to reach their destination. It can also give expected delays and journey times. There is an inordinately long time that people wait for their bus – that can simply be cut off.

A simple mapping of people’s journeys and traffic patterns can render a lot of data on making these routes efficient. But the EBST is working with its head in the sand. Right now they have resorted to really stupid measures like putting up posters and urging people to use their services. What a bum head. People will use services that people value. Period. Increase value.

Uptill now all it did was believe it was a monopoly and then it behaved like one. Bad service, bad route planning, bad conductors, bad buses and a complete mismanagement of crowd. Nobody likes a BEST bus on the road. They behave like bullies and I have been on the receiving end quite a few times.

My other favorite solution was that instead of putting so much money on bridges, we should have simply put money on making the bus service air-conditioned and subsidized that and slowly removed that subsidy. As of now the bridges are so ill designed and one after the other that that most buses don’t ply on them. And the road under the bridges are really narrow especially to make space for the landing and take off that you often find jams near there. This just compounds matters.

Simply put – the BEST must change itself if it has to stay relevant. Mumbai took great pride in having an efficient bus and train service. But this is now not the case. We have not kept pace with the changing needs, trends and technologies and now risk being irrelevant. The city, I see is dying. It is imploding under its own weight and gravity – like a fading star. It will suck inside all – into its black nothingness. This is the death, unless we see some serious innovations.

Here – complete unrelated music…  but I love the song… Jispa loves the movies and the books.

what you see is what you dont

You see the wiring inside the block that I am holding. Those are the Led lights. They are not there. I mean you see them but they do not exist. Confused? Welcome to office systems, processes and politics.

I like this as a telling example of what shit goes around in offices. When this office was being made the business head came to me to design something interesting as the name plate for the office. So I suggested metal cut letters ona wooden background. Then the business head wanted something even more interesting – so I suggested that we put LED lights under the letters and then allow for a teeny space between the letters and the wood so that they have a background glow. Whatever the business head wants – we give – no matter how ugly or kitsch it may be.

But the admin guy forgot to tell the carpenter that Led lights will be there and therefore he did not keep a provision for the lights and hence the electric connection. The option was to have a new veneer or have a cut in the existing veneer. The new option was expensive and the cut was ugly so we abandoned the light idea. But the admin guy did not tell the block guy so he delivered the blocks with the lights. So now we have the blocks with the lights but no connection to switch on the lights. When the bill came up for processing the admin guy refused to pass the bill with the lights. He reasoning was simple – if the bill ever came up for question, somebody would ask – where  are the lights – please switch them on and he would be unable to do so. So the lights as far as he was concerned were not there. So he passes the bill without the lights. The poor vendor wonders – I did as I was told. But finally he was not paid. Of course he was a regular vendor and he will manage and will make his money from somewhere or the other but the moot point being – the lights are not there. So what you see is a figment of your imagination – because can the lights be turned on? NO. Are they reflecting in the books? NO. Did we pay for them? NO? Nothing. The curious case of the presence of the invisible lights.

Office cultures are crazy, notorious and difficult. It takes a lot of expertise to navigate through this maze. Some manage it beautifully well. They know which side the bread is buttered and act accordingly. It’s crazy what happens. People will have lunch with eth boss, go home with the boss, inform and snitch on colleagues with the boss. I have always refrained from snitching on colleagues. It’s an old trick that some bosses use to fester a climate of ill will and hate. They turn one colleague onto another and ensure a network of spies. When I was much younger I was sucked into this, now I know better. I stay clear from these things and don’t let myself get dragged into this mess.

The mess intensifies the further you are away from home. So if you are someone who has migrated and depend heavily on this job – the fight and the insecurity gets even more nasty. That’s why I guess when Indians go aborad they get very very bitchy and competitive. They don’t have an option. I have learnt that about me as well. When I am secure and that I have another offer, I play well, I play fearlessly and the decisions taken are from a position of strength. They are invariably the right ones. One is able to better play and handle situations correctly. Sometimes I feel that is the one advantage the moderately rich kids have over the lesser kids. When I was starting off in life – it was tough and I had to make it. I was married at a young age and failing was not an option. Life strangled me. The other time was when I had a massive EMI. At the time also risk taking was a non-option. Those are the worst days of office life. Office life is bearable and equally good or bad at all times. Assuming of course we are talking about the same office. Different offices have different levels of politics. But in the same office most of the time the environment is the same. The difference is our ability to control or withstand it. We can better cope if we have options outside. If you are a skill set in demand and you know there is always an option for you – you don’t face these issues. But if you are forced to the wall, you are going to play the bitch!

The only way to constantly have an option is to be a liability light person with adequate investments and most important – constantly upgrade your skill sets. If you have skills sets that are in demand then you have the constant confidence to do better. These come by constantly being paranoid about new things and having a yearning to constantly upgrade. Only if you upgrade will you be able to have the confidence to move and hence the confidence to stay: Opposites reconciling?