New Delhi: Launched with much fanfare in May 2013 to address Indore’s traffic problem by prioritising public bus transport, the 11-km-long Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor is now set to be dismantled by the Madhya Pradesh government in a bid to ease traffic congestion in the city.
Transport experts argue that the move will be counterproductive in the long run as it will increase dependence on personal vehicles. They emphasise the need for priority bus lanes in cities, especially as the Centre focuses on enhancing bus transport infrastructure, including electric buses.
Geetam Tiwari, a professor at IIT Delhi, said, “It is extremely unfortunate that the BRT system is being dismantled. It just shows that priority for buses or public transport is not very high on the policy agenda. For people to switch to public transport, we need to provide efficient bus services, and for that, priority bus lanes are a must.”
The BRT system is designed to provide fast, high-capacity, efficient, and cost-effective mobility options to urban populations while reducing traffic congestion.
In Madhya Pradesh, the BRT system was developed in Bhopal and Indore in 2013. While the original plan was to develop over 100 kilometres of BRT network in Indore and 46 kilometres in Bhopal, only 11 and 24 kilometres respectively were constructed.
With increasing vehicular traffic in these cities, the MP government has decided to dismantle the system. The plan to remove Indore’s BRT comes nearly a year after Bhopal’s BRT network was dismantled.
“There has been a lot of convenience in terms of traffic after the BRTS corridor was removed in Bhopal. We will remove the BRTS corridor in Indore as well,” MP Chief Minister Mohan Yadav told reporters in Indore last week, as reported by PTI.
Indore Mayor Pushyamitra Bhargav told ThePrint that the BRT corridor has become counterproductive, leading to traffic congestion. “The BRT network is used by 60,000 people daily. But close to four lakh people were inconvenienced due to it, as there is no space on the road for vehicles. We just plan to do away with the dedicated lane for buses,” said Bhargav, who is also the chairman of Atal Indore City Transport Service Ltd, which operates the BRT system.
This development comes as transport experts celebrate the 50-year journey of the world’s first BRT system in Curitiba, Brazil, which began in November 1974.
While the BRT system has seen great success globally, it has struggled to gain traction in India. Some cities like Ahmedabad, Surat, Jaipur, Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad have implemented BRT systems, but most lack a substantial network.
“In India, we are talking about dismantling BRT, while it has revolutionised public transport globally. It has been successful even in countries like Jakarta, Indonesia. There is a need to change people’s mindsets and provide more priority bus lanes to promote bus transport,” said Rupa Nandy, head of the Union Internationale des Transports Publics (UITP) India, an international association of public bus transport authorities and operators.
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BRT marred by poor implementation
The BRT concept was first proposed in India by the Delhi government in 1996, and Pune operationalised the first corridor in 2006. In 2005, nine cities, including Delhi and Pune, received funding under the Centre’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) to develop BRT corridors.
Despite plans for a 68-kilometre network in Pune, only 16 kilometres have been developed to date. Delhi’s BRT corridor, operational since 2008, was dismantled in 2016. Similarly, other cities failed to meet their proposed targets.
“BRT has been a success worldwide, with cities in China and Latin America developing extensive networks. Unfortunately, no Indian city has a full-fledged BRT system. A small 10-20-kilometre corridor cannot serve the purpose. With increasing pollution and traffic congestion in cities, we need a BRT system now more than ever,” said Tiwari.
Transport experts argue that buses, which carry around 60 people in the space of just three cars, are often unfairly blamed for traffic congestion by car users.
“The idea of BRT is simple: create metro-like reliable transit with the flexibility of buses at a fraction of the cost of heavy rail infrastructure. In India, BRT has been demonised as taking space away from cars, even though bus passengers occupy far less road space. A good BRT system ensures that everyone can bypass traffic jams and reach their destinations on time,” said Shreya Gadepalli, founder of the Urban Works Institute, an independent think tank that helps cities find sustainable solutions for mobility and infrastructure development.
‘BRT network a must for e-buses’
Amid growing demand for metro projects in tier-2 cities, the Narendra Modi government is emphasising bus transport infrastructure, including electric buses.
Under the Centre’s FAME-II scheme, 7,000 electric buses are being provided to cities, mainly large ones. The PM-eBus Sewa scheme, launched last year, aims to provide 10,000 e-buses to smaller cities.
Cities like Delhi, Ahmedabad and Mumbai have incorporated e-buses into their fleet. However, transport experts emphasise the importance of priority bus lanes to prevent e-buses from getting stuck in traffic.
“A public bus operating outside of BRTS or without priority lanes is vulnerable to traffic congestion, which affects its operations, fuel efficiency and mileage. BRTS optimises energy efficiency, minimises congestion impacts and enhances battery performance for e-buses,” said Vaibhav Kush, a researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation.
Efforts to provide efficient and reliable bus systems are essential for ensuring good ridership—a major challenge for India’s road transport corporations.
Despite its small scale, Indore’s BRT system saw considerable growth in ridership over the past decade.
“Ridership increased from 23,000 in 2013 to over 50,000 in February 2024. This highlights the BRT’s role as a sustainable transport solution. Indore was also on the verge of becoming the first fully electrified BRTS system in India,” said Aswathy Dilip, managing director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP)-India.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)
Worldover people prefer private vehicles excluding experts who want to shovel them into shared tin cans like sardines. In the case of Indore, the lanes were created in 2013 and still people haven’t switched. Time to give up on a failed idea.