Bus Shadow regions

Bus shadow regions: describes arterial roads that are not served by public transport

e.g. HAL airport to Old Madras Road in Bangalore.

I coined this word out of sheer frustration. I live on the HAL Airport road which is fairly well serviced by BMTC. My office is on the way to Old Madras road. Everyday there are a large number of folks who travel from the airport road to Old Madras road via Suranjan Das Road. However BMTC does not serve this route. Share autos make a killing and office goers crowd the street with their cars usually with single occupancy. God I hope BMTC adds buses on this route.

I am sometimes frustrated by Bangalore's public transport system. The whole system seems to be based on buses plying long routes with interconnects few and far between. As long you are travelling on one of these routes, you can find a bus in 15-20 mins. However if you need to travel two routes to get to your destination, you are in for trouble. The interconnects are more distant than the destination or you need to walk a fair distance get from a stop on one route to another.

Sometimes I dream for a hubs and spokes public transport system in Bangalore. Minibuses could run to/from any area to the nearest hub and the large buses could ferry folks between hubs. Add a multi-storey parking or a cycle rental at each hub and BMTC could have a significant revenue stream. I can keep on dreaming I guess.