27% of Amdavadis dump private vehicles, board BRT

A few weeks back, Devika used her two-wheeler to commute within the city. But she suddenly decided to hop on to the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) to enjoy free trial runs. Even Sandhya took a ride on the BRTS, and realised that for so long, while riding her two-wheeler, she had only been wasting money on petrol, contributing to the city’s increasing pollution level and traffic woes. She dumped her private vehicle to use the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s (AMC) new and green mode of public transport.

Sandhya is one of the 27 per cent of city commuters who have abandoned their vehicles to use the new and more advanced public transport. Ahead of the scheduled official launch of the BRTS on October 14, the Ahmedabad Janmarg Limited (AJL), a special purpose vehicle of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), conducted a survey to find out about citizen’s mode of transport before the launch of BRTS. For the survey, around 200 persons, who have been using BRTS regularly, were interviewed to get details. Of these, around 68 percent of the passengers were male while 32 percent were females.

If the report of the survey conducted by the AJL is to be believed, around 54 per cent of the city’s commuters have switched from using the Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service (AMTS) to the BRTS. Around 11 per cent have shifted to BRTS from auto rickshaws and 4 per cent from shuttle auto.  

“We conducted the survey to get a feedback and background of daily commuters. The response was overwhelming; we hope to ensure passengers’ comfort and interest,” said director of the AJL, UC Padia.

But if you thought the AMTS would suffer the most with BRTS pulling a hefty number of passengers, read on. In a coordination plan, of the BRTS and the AMTS, it has been decided that the AMTS buses will not run the BRTS trunk line. For instance, the AMTS has started operating in the interior routes, like along the RTO - Chandranagar route, without running their buses on the main road.

“While the BRTS will serve on the main routes, the AMTS will expand its reach to the interior routes so that passengers can avail its services right from their doorsteps. Its best combination for connectivity too,” said Padia.  

The survey results has strengthened the hope that the use of efficient public transport like BRTS in Ahmedabad can be an alternative to city-level issues like increasing pollution because of rapid increase in the number of two and four wheelers, and the consequent traffic jams on city roads. 

Kartikeya Sarabhai of Centre for Environment Education (CEE) said it is definitely a positive sign for Ahmedabad if people switched to public transport. “City like Perth in Australia has managed to divert around 5 per cent to 10 per cent of the commuters to public transport. Even if the AMC manages to attract around 10 per cent of commuters, it will have a great impact on reducing pollution level and traffic,” he said.

He also said that there are lessons to be learnt from the BRTS project. “AMC should start looking at latest technologies and ideas from outside India and implement them in Ahmedabad. Most importantly, before implementing such projects, they should make people aware of the technology,” he added.   

The BRTS trial runs started on July 16, and during the month around 19,000 to 20,000 passengers opted for the BRTS every day. Although the figure slumped to around 17,000 passengers in August, it soared nearly 22,000 passengers a day in September.