Blueline- A public transport or killer Transport

Fight between the blueline and general public is not a new thing. From many years, people of Delhi are fighting for a good public transport which can provide a good transportation facility while also insure the safety of the people. Large fleet of blueline buses is able to provide a transportation option to the people of Delhi but it failed in the safety concerns totally. Every day number of people becomes victim of Blueline menace and some of them are even have to lose hand with their lives.

Delhi government introduced Delhi Metro for solving this problem and to some extent Delhi Metro has also provided help but it is not possible for Delhi government to run Delhi Metro on the every route, therefore an alternative good public transport is need of the hour. However, Delhi government has so far failed in providing an alternative transport facility which also provides a safety to the general public.

Lots of previous incidences indicate that Sheela Dixit government in Delhi is even not serious on this issue and in her last speech Sheela Dixit advised Delhi people to walk on the road with care. Overall this is a matter of great concern and need immediate solution so that life of number of innocent people can be saved. Now if this is the condition of public transport service in Indian capital then what we can expect from the public transports of the other backward areas.

Also read-How many more poor people will be killed by the rich people’s cars?

People’s fight, for the people and by the people

2 Comments

  1. If you feel that Delhi's Public Transport System is bad, either you have not seen the system in other metropolitan cities of the country or you are unable to estimate the enormous size of Delhi's traffic. I would say city has a superb transport system but lacks proper management and discipline from the enforcement agencies. Every time an accident occurs, the bus is tagged with killer status and demands for stalling the bluelines start gathering momentum. It would be like instead of treating the ailment killing a person getting sick. We should look into the causes of problems rather than removing the situation as it does not seem to be a viable option in current scenario.

    This year 1910 people lost their lives on Delhi roads out of which 96 were by Blueline buses. What about the rest 1814 lives? You will be surprised to know that trucks have killed more than 400 people this year but no one is talking about reining them in. Just because one class of vehicles is killing people in the night should not give them a license to kill. I am not escaping buses’ faults by trying to list other vehicles’ bigger ones but just trying to make a point that how hard it is to be perfect in a completely imperfect system. Having said that, I still believe that each human life is very important and we on our part should aim to reduce these accidents to zero.

    Lets move on to another issue, that of the bus lanes. The bus lanes were marked by the order of the apex court so that buses can ply on the designated areas on the road. If however you have seen the actual condition on the roads you would know how difficult that is when all sorts of vehicles from rickshaws and tangas to three wheelers and sometimes even cars take up that space. The problem gets aggregated by the motor cyclists who always want to overtake some vehicle or the other on the road and when space gets too tight which happens all the time on Delhi roads, they take the easiest route of overtaking a bus from left side. Often, the commuters also stand on the bus box rather than standing at the bus-stand which makes the bus cross the line when picking or dropping passengers. All this adds up for a perfect recipe for disaster and subsequently the reason for majority of the accidents. The obvious question which then comes to the mind is that why do we always hear a Blueline bus getting involved in an accident when there are other buses too which ply on the roads that is DTC. It is a wrong notion that when it comes to buses, Bluelines kill the most. The point can be proven by a simple arithmetic argument:
    • There are about 4500 Blueline buses on Delhi roads and 2500 DTC ones
    • A large part of the DTC fleet (about 10 – 15 %) runs on interstate routes
    • If you ever visited a DTC depot you would know that about 10-15% of the buses are standing there due to poor maintenance which understandably is not the case with profit seeking private operators. Still we can take 5 – 10 % of their buses being down due to some problem or the other
    • DTC also supplies about 900 buses to the city schools for 4-5 hours. Taking a 16 hour duty for a bus, that number comes to about 250 DTC buses being off the roads per day
    • If you don’t believe the above facts, you can ask any commuter on Delhi roads of how many DTC and Blueline buses they see on roads each day.
    • This gives us about 4000 Blueline buses and 1400 DTC buses plying on Delhi roads at any given time. Considering the number of accidents, DTC killed approximately 50 people this year (0.036 fatalities per bus per year) compared to Blueline’s 100 (0.025 fatalities per bus per year). Clearly DTC kills more.

    I am not trying to play a blame game but only trying to uncover what gets viewed by naked eyes. The point is not who kills how much but that if buses run under such conditions on the road, they are bound to get involved in an accident and we all know that when that happens it will always be the lighter vehicle like motor bike, rickshaw, car or pedestrian who will get more damage irrespective of whose fault it is.

    It should be kept in mind that having presented the above argument does not make the bus drivers all good and other vehicles all bad. No body is denying that some of the bus drivers drive rashly and even after getting involved in an accident they come back to roads in 3 to 4 days. Reason: Rash and negligent driving is a bailable offence and as oppositely thought, it is always the owner who feels the pinch as he ends up paying the fine charged on the driver (around Rs. 5000 – Rs. 10000) because most of these drivers fail to furnish that big an amount and the owner’s impounded bus can not be released before driver gets the bail, leaving the owner with no option but to pay. The outcome is that drivers feel they are untouchable and can get away with anything. There needs to be change in the Motor Vehicle Act so that the person who is in the thick of things when an accident actually happens, that is the driver, should get maximum punishment. This would inhibit him and others to drive rashly even if he urged to do so by the conductor. It is simple logic: Everyone wants to save their neck.

    It also clears a delusion that buses are not monetarily (or otherwise) punished once involved in an offence. Apart from paying for driver’s fine, the bus gets impounded for minimum of a day and then later serves a notice for at least 5 more days during which it can not be operated. This amounts to huge losses for the operator which works out between Rs. 25000 to Rs. 30000.

    There is also a widely held misconception that most of the buses are owned by politicians and police personnel. There are a few buses (less than 15%) which are owned by such people and often these are the buses which flout the rules as they are safe-guarded by their masters. It is the common operator who gets the burns whenever a discipline drive is started by the traffic police as none of the politicians’ or police personnel’s bus ever gets impounded. It’s a well known fact in the transport department that the larger population of common operators ends up paying for the ill doings of these buses. Even if you see the numbers it’s the 2% buses which are involved in the fatal accidents for which rest of the 98% are punished.

    This blog is in no way a justification but an attempt to bring out some of the real issues which are never taken up and the Blueline buses blindly held responsible. Such attitude of putting 100% blame on one party can never solve a problem but give rise to other problems.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This year 1910 people lost their lives on Delhi roads out of which 96 were by Blueline buses. What about the rest 1814 lives? You will be surprised to know that trucks have killed more than 400 people this year but no one is talking about reining them in. Just because one class of vehicles is killing people in the night should not give them a license to kill. I am not escaping buses’ faults by trying to list other vehicles’ bigger ones but just trying to make a point that how hard it is to be perfect in a completely imperfect system. Having said that, I still believe that each human life is very important and we on our part should aim to reduce these accidents to zero.

    Lets move on to another issue, that of the bus lanes. The bus lanes were marked by the order of the apex court so that buses can ply on the designated areas on the road. If however you have seen the actual condition on the roads you would know how difficult that is when all sorts of vehicles from rickshaws and tangas to three wheelers and sometimes even cars take up that space. The problem gets aggregated by the motor cyclists who always want to overtake some vehicle or the other on the road and when space gets too tight which happens all the time on Delhi roads, they take the easiest route of overtaking a bus from left side. Often, the commuters also stand on the bus box rather than standing at the bus-stand which makes the bus cross the line when picking or dropping passengers. All this adds up for a perfect recipe for disaster and subsequently the reason for majority of the accidents. The obvious question which then comes to the mind is that why do we always hear a Blueline bus getting involved in an accident when there are other buses too which ply on the roads that is DTC. It is a wrong notion that when it comes to buses, Bluelines kill the most. The point can be proven by a simple arithmetic argument:
    • There are about 4500 Blueline buses on Delhi roads and 2500 DTC ones
    • A large part of the DTC fleet (about 10 – 15 %) runs on interstate routes
    • If you ever visited a DTC depot you would know that about 10-15% of the buses are standing there due to poor maintenance which understandably is not the case with profit seeking private operators. Still we can take 5 – 10 % of their buses being down due to some problem or the other
    • DTC also supplies about 900 buses to the city schools for 4-5 hours. Taking a 16 hour duty for a bus, that number comes to about 250 DTC buses being off the roads per day
    • If you don’t believe the above facts, you can ask any commuter on Delhi roads of how many DTC and Blueline buses they see on roads each day.
    • This gives us about 4000 Blueline buses and 1400 DTC buses plying on Delhi roads at any given time. Considering the number of accidents, DTC killed approximately 50 people this year (0.036 fatalities per bus per year) compared to Blueline’s 100 (0.025 fatalities per bus per year). Clearly DTC kills more.

    I am not trying to play a blame game but only trying to uncover what gets viewed by naked eyes. The point is not who kills how much but that if buses run under such conditions on the road, they are bound to get involved in an accident and we all know that when that happens it will always be the lighter vehicle like motor bike, rickshaw, car or pedestrian who will get more damage irrespective of whose fault it is.

    It should be kept in mind that having presented the above argument does not make the bus drivers all good and other vehicles all bad. No body is denying that some of the bus drivers drive rashly and even after getting involved in an accident they come back to roads in 3 to 4 days. Reason: Rash and negligent driving is a bailable offence and as oppositely thought, it is always the owner who feels the pinch as he ends up paying the fine charged on the driver (around Rs. 5000 – Rs. 10000) because most of these drivers fail to furnish that big an amount and the owner’s impounded bus can not be released before driver gets the bail, leaving the owner with no option but to pay. The outcome is that drivers feel they are untouchable and can get away with anything. There needs to be change in the Motor Vehicle Act so that the person who is in the thick of things when an accident actually happens, that is the driver, should get maximum punishment. This would inhibit him and others to drive rashly even if he urged to do so by the conductor. It is simple logic: Everyone wants to save their neck.

    It also clears a delusion that buses are not monetarily (or otherwise) punished once involved in an offence. Apart from paying for driver’s fine, the bus gets impounded for minimum of a day and then later serves a notice for at least 5 more days during which it can not be operated. This amounts to huge losses for the operator which works out between Rs. 25000 to Rs. 30000.

    There is also a widely held misconception that most of the buses are owned by politicians and police personnel. There are a few buses (less than 15%) which are owned by such people and often these are the buses which flout the rules as they are safe-guarded by their masters. It is the common operator who gets the burns whenever a discipline drive is started by the traffic police as none of the politicians’ or police personnel’s bus ever gets impounded. It’s a well known fact in the transport department that the larger population of common operators ends up paying for the ill doings of these buses. Even if you see the numbers it’s the 2% buses which are involved in the fatal accidents for which rest of the 98% are punished.

    This blog is in no way a justification but an attempt to bring out some of the real issues which are never taken up and the Blueline buses blindly held responsible. Such attitude of putting 100% blame on one party can never solve a problem but give rise to other problems.

    ReplyDelete
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