Incorporating Intelligent Transportation Systems in Bengaluru’s Bus Transport Policy: Analysis of the Critical Enabling Factors

Abstract

Urban bus transportation in India is the lifeline of the common man and supports the informal economy and supports the transportation needs of a heterogenous class of citizens. However, the last few decades have seen city bus transportation funding reduce, operational inefficiencies, declining revenues and poor service quality affect the patronage of the bus transport systems. The National Urban Transport Policy 2014 mandated the deployment of ITS technologies in urban public transportation, but apart from Mysuru, other mega-cities have not been able to deploy ITS technologies. The lack of literature on the areas of ITS in urban bus transportation, subsequently seen in the lack of guidelines in the NUTP 2014 have acted as barricade to the deployment of ITS technology. Therefore, this study attempts to understand the areas/ modalities of ITS which can be used in the India urban bus transportation, and the critical enabling factors of ITS which need to be identified due to practical restrictions on the transport corporations using the BMTC as an illustration. The study created a framework of the areas of ITS implementation in Indian urban bus systems and identified critical enabling factors for Bengaluru. The BMTC was identified as it serves as a replicate for other mega-cities and developing cities following the similar developmental pathway. Through extensive secondary literature and primary literature, the study was able to identify the different modalities of ITS technology in Indian bus systems and the critical enabling ITS factors for the BMTC, and the advantages brought about through the deployment of ITS technologies. It is expected that the critical enabling factors would be able to help mega-cities deploy ITS technologies under their financial, socio-economic and cultural restrictions and developing cities. Moreover, policy suggestions for the subsequent national transportation policies have been made based on the findings.