This is based on a twitter rant on the same subject a few weeks back.
Bangalore’s public transport network has traditionally followed a hub-and-spoke model, with three hubs – Kempegowda Bus Station (aka “Majestic”), KR Market and Shivajinagar. It can be modeled, however, as a two-hub system, for Majestic and Market are quite close to each other and thus quite well-connected. It was probably not originally meant to be that way – for bus number 1 (not sure it still exists) ran from Jayanagar 4th Block to Yeshwantpur – basically from the south to the north-west corner of the city. Of course, it passed through Market.
Over time, however, the bus system has moved to an increasingly hub-and-spoke model. The BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation) did one exercise a few years back, trying to rationalize routes (it was partly due to an effort led by Ashwin Mahesh of Mapunity). However, while adding useful additions such as the ring routes (the “big circle” and the “chikka (small) circle” routes) and one or two “trunk routes” (that run right across town), what this revised template does is to further increase the primacy of the hubs. For example, the much talked about Big 10 routes are essentially arterial routes running from a point in the middle of town to some place along one of the highways leading out of Bangalore (they are not strictly hub routes, though, since some of them stop a short distance from a major hub).
The increase in primacy of hubs combined with metro construction (the two metro lines will criss-cross each othe at – you guessed it – Majestic!) has completely overwhelmed the hubs. It is impossible (unless you sacrifice copious amounts of time) to change buses at Majestic now, for the amount of time it takes for a bus to get into majestic and for a bus to get out of majestic is too high a transaction cost.
Moreover, changing buses at a terminus is not efficient, given the waiting times involved and the extra transaction costs of getting out of the terminus. What works better is changing buses at an intermediate stop. To use an anecdote, for two years (1998-2000) I traveled to school in Indiranagar (east Bangalore) from my home in Jayanagar (south Bangalore). I would take a bus going to Shivajinagar (Jayanagar-Shivajinagar is well connected – being a hub route) and get off at Richmond circle, from where I would take a bus from Majestic to Indiranagar (again a hub route, so well served). I could change buses while standing at the same bus stop (made things easier), and the frequency of buses on the two hub routes meant I would get to school easily (again the traffic in the 1990s was nothing compared to what it is now). I had the option of changing buses at a hub, but eschewed it due to transaction costs.
Coming back, what we need in Bangalore is to reformat the bus network in a way that mimics the patterns in which people travel. Right now the assumption of the BMTC seems to be that they should connect every area to a major hub, and then let people take it from there. What they do not take into account is that 1. traffic has grown much worse and 2. People put a higher value on their time nowadays, because of which the transaction cost of the old hub-and-spoke model is way too high. What they need to do instead is to design the network based on people flows.
The first step of such reform is to understand the patterns in which Bangalore moves. One way to do this would be via smart ticketing. A few years back buses in Bangalore started introducing smart ticketing machines, and your ticket would be a printout. However, that didn’t take off. If that can be reintroduced (in all buses) and coupled with destination based ticketing rather than leg based ticketing (for example, if I’m going from Jayanagar to Indiranagar via Richmond Circle I get on to the bus in Jayanagar and buy a ticket to Indiranagar directly. The same ticket allows me to travel on any bus between Richmond Circle and Indiranagar. This introduces complexity but can be done). This will give the BMTC information in terms of the routes on which people actually travel. And once that happens, an effort can be made to reformat the bus network.