Adding a new Experience : Connecting IIT-G to city
Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati has located some 20 km from Guwahati Railway station. Guwahati city is located on the south bank of the mighty Brahmaputra river whereas IITG is located on the north bank of the mighty Brahmaputra. IITG provides a dedicated bus service to all of its residents on an hourly basis (there may be some changes) from 06:45 am to 09:35 pm (free of cost). Apart from this, there is a facility of ferry (boat) services. If you want to go to the city by ferry then first you have to go to ferry ghaat from the campus by autorickshaw (which charge you ₹10 each if you are 5 or more people otherwise he will take a minimum of ₹50 ) then by ferry to the city which will cost you ₹10. In every 15 minutes, a ferry from ferry ghaat go to the city (fancy bazar) and vice-versa. You can also book a cab (OLA/Uber) from campus to Guwahati city.
But all these facilities are not sufficient. Many times the buses are totally occupied. People have to stand on the bus and travel. It happened to me many times. It got worse when you are returning from the city and exhausted or there is hot summer or humidity. Even sometimes the buses are so occupied that you can not board them. The ferry is good in these senses but the problem is you have to travel to ferry ghaat, costly and generally, there is medium you are coming back to campus from ferry ghaat. Either you have to walk (3–4 km) or book an autorickshaw at a very high price (usually they are not available there).
So I thought why not to combine the both i.e. the bus service and the ferry service. The bus takes usually 45 minutes to reach Pan bazar if there is no traffic whereas the ferry takes only 10 minutes to cross the river. It’s environment-friendly, we are judiciously using the available resources, saving the time and money.
So, my idea is there will be a minibus service provided by IITG which will connect the campus to ferry and at ferry ghaat there will be specially designed ferry exclusively for IITG community to connect to the city. I thought the minibus will be designed to give the better experience and there will be minibus stops inside the campus such that it connects all the hostels and residence.
