Double-deckers to roll back onto roads soon

By Melvin Mathew

BMTC embarks on dual endeavours; plans to finalise double-decker tenders in a week and enhances last-mile connectivity with metro feeder website

BMTC will finalise tenders for double-decker buses within a week. Double-decker AC buses will run on selected routes in Bengaluru.

In February 2024, BMTC finally floated a tender for the procurement of 10 double-decker buses under the Gross Cost Contract (GCC) model. The last date for participating in the tender has expired and BMTC is likely to select an agency soon. “We have floated a tender for double-decker buses and we will be finalising the tender soon,” said a BMTC official.

BMTC is procuring the 10 double-decker AC electric buses under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) and State Urban Transport Fund (SUTF) of the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT).

These buses would run on select routes due to vertical clearance issues. Currently, BMTC has plans for Majestic to Shivajinagar, Shivajinagar to Market, and Majestic to Attibele. These buses however would be required to run an assured 150 km per day over 350 days accumulating to 52,500 km in a year. For the operation of these double-deckers, BMTC has identified the Subhashnagar depot where all the charging infrastructure will be set up.

The double-deckers will have a vertical height of 4.4 m to 4.7 m and could pose a difficulty with deployment in some areas especially with foot-over bridges. In the late 90s, BMTC used to run double-decker buses through areas such as Shivajinagar, Jayanagar, MG Road, and City Market, and Bengalureans last saw double-deckers in 2014.

Website to make feeder bus info easier to access

Chaitanya Deep, along with support from the team at Bengawalk, a public transport enthusiast group, has created a website with all the details regarding metro feeder buses introduced by the BMTC.
Pravar from Bengawalk, while introducing the website, took to Twitter and said, “BMTC has been on a spree of releasing new feeder bus routes. Many of them are awesome and super useful, but it’s been a little hard to keep track of the constant updates.”
To help commuters have better access to information regarding the routes and timings of the buses, the website includes all the details of the feeder buses that have been introduced. The details can be accessed on feederbus.bengawalk.com.
“This is all open source, and we would be very happy to help you set up/integrate some of the features and UI into the Namma BMTC app if you feel the need. We would love it if this site could be ported to feederbus.bmtc.com,” Pravar wrote while tagging the BMTC Twitter handle.

Frequent commuters have noted that the website is very user-friendly, making it convenient for those looking to use the services provided by metro feeders. Some even said that the website is much better at providing details regarding the feeder buses in comparison to the details provided by the BMTC on its own website.