The Metro-Bus Transit (MBT) pass that was to provide seamless travel on both BMTC buses and Namma Metro, has failed to make a mark in the city. Poor sales of the passes have been attributed to the short Reach-1 route and bad Metro feeder service. The MBT passes are being jointly issued by the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) and Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL). It was introduced much before the Namma Metro was launched last year.
“At the BMTC depots the sale of these passes is about 10 per cent. The MBT passes have failed to catch the attention of the general public. This is mainly because the first line of the Metro is just 6.7 km. However, we anticipate that when the entire Phase-1 of 42.3 km is operational, sales of these passes may go up drastically,” said a senior BMTC official. The poor feeder bus service run by BMTC for Namma Metro is another reason for the poor sales of the passes. Initially there were plans to run 60 odd mini-buses as a part of feeder bus service, but BMTC has not bought the buses as yet. There are only 10 mini buses in the Metro bus feeder fleet.
“The large buses cannot be parked in front of the metro station and have to be parked away from the station. Many Metro commuters are unaware where the buses are parked because of which they find autos a better way for commuting. Moreover, reliability and timeliness of the metro feeder service has been an issue. Initially these buses used to run for a radius of less than three kilometres, but since the response to the service was cold, the service was extended up to nine kilometres. However, this measure too did not attract the metro passengers,” said the official.
However, even after the failure of Metro feeder buses along Reach-1, BMTC will launch feeder service for Reach-3. They are hoping that the feeder service and sales of MBT passes will shoot up as the Metro network grows.