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Prasita V

Are you willing to #leaveYourCarBehind for a Dream-Shuttle for your everyday commute to work?

Image courtesy: Superbus — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superbus_(transport)

Let us consider just Bangalore, to narrow it further the stretch between say ITPL and Electronic city. These two being the 2 major hubs for most of the IT and ITES companies. No amount of fly-overs are doing justice to either locations. The increasing residential pockets are adding to the woes. I wonder how do these massive projects get approved when the road it opens into, practically never displays a vacant foot of asphalt in the peak hours on a regular work day. My friend an I were joking about it this morning saying they perhaps have to live inside their apartment complexes forever.

I see many people driving to work alone in their 4-wheeler. No offence meant to any of them, I hope to remain your friend even after you finish reading this :) I have seen multiple discussions around why people want to travel in their own cars and why they should not do so by the environment enthusiasts. Both sides have their own strong points. What would it take to get them to use an alternate mode of transport? (Well I don’t drive myself so the word they)

Improving public transport is perhaps a no-brainer. The Volvo buses that ply are definitely a huge plus already. But at times the bus-stops cause more traffic jams than help reduce them. The change in the Kundanahalli bus stop(towards Marathahalli bridge) just by a few feet was magical. The same needs to be done to a lot more bus stops all the way. It may be difficult to have a small hard shoulder kind-of addition to the road in place of bus-stops everywhere, but this too has helped. Consider the Marathahalli bridge bus-stop(towards Kundanahalli) for instance. Could the same not work for the Sarjapura Road and Agara bus-stops? These are minor fixes, before we can talk about a ginormous investment in the metro line.

Assuming I convince a few people to take an alternate mode of transport, say a shuttle. Will I get a 4/6 for assuming this is what you would be looking for?

  1. Flexible timings
  2. Air-conditioned vehicles
  3. Wi-fi, electical supply points — practically recreate a work environment on the move
  4. Preferably accessible at a walking distance from where you live
  5. An assured seating space
  6. Completely prepaid, no hassles of change

What if there are a few nice-to-haves that crawl into the feature list of your dream shuttle-future versions?

  1. Phone-booth — a marked place for meetings on the go.
  2. A snack vending machine …mind you only healthy snacks.
  3. A side of the shuttle customized for standing work-stations (with enough lean-on support considering the condition of roads).
  4. A driver and an on-board staff (one of them being female mandatory on each shuttle).
  5. On-board staff to be trained similar to the aircraft staff.
  6. Maintain high cleanliness and hygiene standards.
  7. GPS tracking and linkage with leading hospitals for medical emergencies and police station for security reasons(there could be any emergency in the shuttle, a pregnant commuter, a sudden illness).
  8. Bio toilets ( come-on on how many rainy days have you wished you could use one when on a city-bus).
  9. We would all love to add a speed of 250 km/hour like the super-bus, but of what use is the speed to us unless we have infrastructure to support it here in Bangalore.

To add let me tell you the Dream-Shuttles will start from your apartment complex everyday at 30 minute intervals between 7:00 am and 10:30 am. These will pick you back from the designed stops between 4:30 pm and 7:00 pm at 30 minute intervals. The destination will only be your apartment, no deviations allowed in the first version. Flexibility yes, If there are more than 5 people opting for a new time off the schedule a vehicle will be made available. Travelling with your neighbors would definitely be much more safer than being with total strangers especially at weird hours. An app notifies you just in time as it reaches your place for pick-up, also telling you about the number of vacant seats.

Well I am sure you have additional scenarios like dropping kids off to school on the way to work, going for a doctor’s appointment on the way back etc. Trust me the DreamShuttle 2.0 will factor in these as well. Assuming you don’t have these deviations on 7 out of 10 of your workdays, willl you #leaveYourCarBehind and #takeTheDreamShuttle?

What more can the dream shuttle do to make your commute to work no less than a dream? If wishes were Dream-Shuttles, won’t you ride on them? Ola, Uber are you listening? I really wish you come up with a Dream-Shuttle like this.