Hindustan's Public Transportation - Problems and Possible Solutions

Namaste!

In this blog, I take public transport as a problem and propose solutions as a citizen. This problem is one major problem because it directly connects with pathetic traffic conditions that most of the Indian cities are facing, poor air conditions which impacts climate to change. 

In Hindustan, there are agencies for public transportation  working independently than each other in each of its cities/places. Public transportation includes buses and metros which are either in planning stage or already built. In Hindustan, we find different agencies, colors, types of buses, types of metro, ticketing systems, operation timings etc. being used there in public transport. If someone from city 'A' wants to travel in city 'B', he/she will have to invest some time to understand how it works and most probably, city A and B will have exactly opposite strategy and operations of each other of how they work. 

It faintly gives a glimpse of how current Hindustan functions, not only each state but each city, each public agency operates independently but also defines its own criteria for project and takes its own decisions and implements it. I am not against the independent decision-making capacity but I see it as a problem if there is no standardization done for things like types of buses and metros, type of ticketing system. Operation timings may vary depending on feasibility but there can be guideline for the same again. 

We see city 'A' implementing BRT in its own way and failing and city 'B' implementing BRT successfully - both implemented differently. We do not come across any country-wide guideline mutually agreed by states and cities, and hence, such problems may occur in the future too. 

Currently, it is so difficult for Hindustanis to understand their public transport, we cannot expect tourists coming from outside of Hindustan understand the public transport and use it. Standardization will encourage everybody to use the system and will make it easy to use. I strongly believe efficient public transport is the one of the strongest signs of well-developed nation. 

So firstly, there is a need of standardization of public transport which is currently not there and Govt of India and Govt of all the states need to study and define the guidelines of public transport projects, procurement, implementation, operation and maintenance. 

Next, most importantly, there is a total lack of consideration of differently-abled people when public transport is built. It is extremely difficult for differently-able people to get on and get off the buses or trains as the height of buses or trains is too high and the distance between the platform-to-train or footpath-to-bus is big. They have to rely on other people to help them and cannot do it themselves which they should be able to do so. 

I have come across some of the images of footpaths built in British-era and I think they were more suitable for differently-abled people than that of now. Footpaths are important because people wait and get on the bus from there. Hindustan needs to standardize the height of the footpath which are convenient for all kinds of people to use.

Jai Hind!