To The Moon And Back, And Off Again: BMTC Buses Cover Thrice The Average Lunar Distance Per Day

On a daily basis, buses in Bengaluru travel 11.5 lakh km. This is approximately equal to three times the average distance between Earth and Moon (3,84,000 km). Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) operates 71,000 trips a day in 6,000 different routes in the city.

The frequency of buses is more in the northern part of the city while there are lesser number of routes. In southern Bengaluru, the routes are more but the frequency is less. Kizley Benedict mapped analytics that revealed the aforementioned data.

Contrary to expectations, K R Market is the hub of most routes of BMTC and not Kempegowda Bus Stand (KBS) according to a Deccan Herald report. 918 routes converge from K R Market and KBS has 676. The longest bus route (Route Number 600) is 117 km long.

“A few years ago, BMTC had consolidated 30 to 50 existing routes to start three ‘trunk’ services from KBS (Majestic) to Anekal (Route 3A), Bommanahalli (3B) and Chandapura (3C),” Vinay Sreenivasa of Bus Prayanikara Vedike told Deccan Herald. The feeder buses have never materialised, he added. Forcing commuters to buy more than one ticket to reach a destination is ‘demotivating’ according to Vinay.

Route rationalisation could help reduce the number of buses and increase the frequency of trips that are made in a day.