India BRT Round-up: Delhi and Pune

Posted: 01 Mar 2007

Related to: BRT in India, Developing High-Quality, Low-Cost Mass Transit, India
Contributed by: Shreya Gadepalli, ITDP

After nearly half a decade of planning, Delhi’s High Capacity Bus System is being implemented.  Pune’s BRT system, the country’s first, gets off to a weak start.

Delhi

Delhi’s HCBS (High Capacity Bus System) is slowly becoming a reality after nearly half a decade of planning. At present, the curb sides have been barricaded for shifting underground utilities and services on the first 16-kilometer (9.9-mile) corridor, from Ambedkar Nagar to Delhi Gate. Six other corridors in various parts of the city are being designed by multiple consultants and tenders may soon be floated. Efforts are on to create an appropriate institutional structure for the newly formed special purpose company, Delhi Integrated Multi-modal Transit System (DIMTS), which would manage the implementation and operations of HCBS.

One hopes that this new entity would help integrate various forms of transit being planned in the city, though very little has been done in terms of integrating the ever growing Delhi Metro network with the proposed BRT system. Metro plans have been cleared to connect the fancy suburb of Gurgaon to South Delhi and work has already started. The capital city wants to have in place the entire BRT system before the 2010 Commonwealth Games to be held in Delhi.

Pune

In the meantime, the Western Indian city of Pune became the first city to implement BRT in India. Unfortunately, it was done in much haste and operations were started with a mere four low-floor buses on a small 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) section, shorter than half of the pilot corridor. The physical infrastructure itself is of poor quality. Due to political pressure from various quarters, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) was forced to allow a fleet of old buses from PMTS (Pune Municipal Transport Service) on this infrastructure, creating a depressing image and a very bad precedent for other cities planning BRT in India. The system has met with fierce criticism from different groups and it has not helped that accidents have occurred on this section due to poor enforcement, unclear signage and very little public outreach.

Undeterred, PMC is moving ahead with construction of nearly 120 kilometers (74.6 miles) of segregated road network for its BRT operations. PMC has also sent its bus operations and engineering services staff to Bogotá, Colombia to understand the intricacies of implementing a world class BRT system like Transmilenio. The city will also host an upcoming training workshop in April 2007 to be co-organized by ITDP and GTZ along with Indian government and local institutions. Over 60 delegates are expected to attend from more than 15 Indian cities that are implementing or planning to implement BRT.