The Bus Day Saga

The 1st 'Bus Day' @ Bangalore was 'celebrated' with lot of hype and hoopla on 04-Feb-2010. I am always a supporter to take the bus to your work - let it be our BMTC or the company provided transport.

BMTC's Volvos are lot better than any company buses in terms of cost, comfort and connectivity! (though sometimes you don't get it when you need :-)) 

From my personal experience, I take my company provided transport, which uses Swaraj Mazda vehicles, Tata Starbus and Big buses. None of them are Air-Conditioned (A/C) which Volvo's has an upper hand, especially during Summer periods. Also, sometimes I need to / like to work / surf when I sit in my bus, which I can comfortably do in Volvo's compared to any of my company provided transport. The Volvo's shock absorption is so good that any humps/potholes (never to go away in Bangalore!) does not affect you and you can easily and happily keep working/typing in the laptop. The same thing in my company provided transport sucks! Sometimes my laptop screen goes down flat 180degrees when my bus goes over a hump/pothole!

So coming back to the 'Bus Day' - its a new concept which I liked and I hoped that many people will hop on to buses, atleast on that day. The reason am saying is daily I see approx 500+ cars (or even more!) and 1000+ 2-wheelers parked in the distributed parking in my company campus. To give another picture, Infosys has a multi-level car park which can accommodate close to 1500 cars! So given this high amount of car users to office, i some times think about the fuel consumption, the traffic, the pollution and other factors created by these many people! Even though company provides buses at many regular intervals, I dont know why so huge numbers have to take their cars out shelling more money for themselves + contributing the pollution and traffic to the already-choked Bangalore roads. The company provided transport is not for some employess but to all! Why dont they take bus instead? Should the companies come up with some strict plans to 'advise' them to take buses and create a better atmosphere?

In this aspect, 'Bus Day' could not capture much people since I saw around 80% of the amount of cars and 2-wheelers I see daily on that day. Its an individual's thinking and equal responsibility to the environment that should make him/her to leave the cars/2-wheelers and take buses. Saving fuel and conserving the nature and its resources should be the prime target and everybody's responsibility. Wish companies will take some strict measures to bring in some discipline and care towards nature and thus for our future generations!