Riding with the city: Ahmedabad’s public transport is robust but only a tenth of residents rely on it

Aarti Yadav, 28, a resident of Thaltej which has a metro station, travels every day to work to Narol – around 16 km away – on her scooter. She finds the crowded buses “uncomfortable”. “My home is far from the Thaltej metro station. My working hours are erratic – the day starts early morning and continues sometimes till late evening. So, convenience is a priority for me. However, in terms of money, it makes a dent in the pocket. Using public transport is cheaper than buying petrol. My friend also travels a long way but she has to break her journey to reach the office every day due to bad connectivity,” says Yadav.

She also complains about the long waiting period for buses, extending to up to 20 minutes. The only time Yadav used the metro was during monsoon when she could not navigate the waterlogged roads on her scooter.

This is not just the case with Yadav. ‘Understanding the City’, a recent project by the first-semester students of the postgraduate programme under the Faculty of Planning at city-based CEPT University, found that public transport was not the first choice for commuters despite the extensive network.

“In general, 9-10 per cent of the population uses public transport in Ahmedabad. This is very less compared to other metro cities. But now we are focussing on the integration of services, route rationalisation, connectivity, frequency as well as the last-mile connectivity,” Vishal Khanama, general manager of Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) and in-charge Deputy Municipal Commissioner (North Zone), Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), tells The Indian Express.
The reasons cited in the CEPT University study, which concluded after a household survey and interviews of users of public and private transport services, were “unreliable service, poor accessibility, and overall commuter experience forcing residents to choose private vehicles that provide travel efficiency”.

Prof Shivanand Swamy, Director of Center of Excellence in Urban Transport, CEPT University, who has been instrumental in spearheading the planning and operationalisation of the BRTS, shares with The Indian Express, “We have built the Metro, BRTS and are operating the AMTS for years. But all three are operating independently. The AMC is working out a way to integrate them. To begin with, they have attempted to make the fare the same but there are certain technological aspects too which are now being worked out.”

Ahmedabad is gradually working towards public transport integration. (Express Photo by Nirmal Harindran)

Prof Swamy says integration and rationalisation of services can help adjust any “supply issues”. “Today, what happens is that AMTS and BRTS run their buses, that duplication will not be there. Therefore more efficiency will be brought to the scheduling of the buses,” he adds.

Besides, the service has not grown in sync with the demand. 700 buses of the AMTS, plying on 149 routes, and around 325 BRTS on 19 routes make up for too small a fleet for the size of the city.
Prof Swamy also points out the road network has not increased commensurately. “With the increase in income, people are buying more cars but the road network is not increasing”, he says. Vehicle registration data shows Ahmedabad registered 1,79,989 two-wheelers in 2019 and 50,285 cars, which rose to 7,49,709 and 2,63,312, respectively, by 2023.

The CEPT University project also revealed that Ahmedabad does not have enough buses as compared to other cities. For instance, the city has only 16 buses per lakh population as against Hong Kong which has 320 for the same size of population, Tokyo (177), New York (120), London (100), Kolkata (80), and Mumbai (65).

Further, the report also revealed that an average public transport user spends Rs 20 for an average trip length of 7.6 km. A private transport user spends Rs 89 to cover the same length of journey. Public transport is five times more affordable than private transport but public transport takes three times more time.

Preference for electric buses

Deputy Commissioner Khanama says that after the Janmarg added electric buses, more people are using them. “If we look at the pre-Covid data, in 2019, BRTS ridership was around 1.5 lakh per day.

Post Covid, we have touched the figure of 1.9 lakh. After that, when we introduced the electric buses in December 2019 with 50 electric buses, another 150 were added in a phased manner more people preferred BRTS transport services. Currently, the BRTS ridership crosses 2 lakh on Mondays. In July, the fare structure was revised in multiples of 5, starting from Rs 5,” he says.

Electric buses, he says, are less noisy and more comfortable than diesel buses. “Among diesel, CNG, and electric, people prefer electric buses. Among the 325 BRTS buses, 200 are electric buses, 50 are CNG and 85 are diesel,” says Khanama. Ideally, according to Khanama, 30-35 per cent of residents should be using public transport for which the AMC is focussed on fine-tuning fares, rationalising routes, and is also exploring common fare metrics. “There are plans to extend the Janmitra card being used in AMTS and BRTS to the Metro too,” he shares, giving details on the integration vision.

A report by the National Institute of Urban Affairs on Urban Transport Initiatives in India – while commending the AMTS – has pointed out how its fleet size was 450 in 2005 when the average daily ridership was 3.5 lakh. ‘While the share of public transport declined, the share of auto rickshaws increased. In the city, there were about 35,000 auto rickshaws operating catering to 10 per cent of total trips,” read the report. The BRTS, sanctioned in 2005 under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), was rolled out by the Special Purpose Vehicle Ahmedabad Janmarg Ltd at a cost of Rs 980 crore in 2009. It was inaugurated by Narendra Modi, who was the chief minister at the time.

Albeit, there are committed users of BRTS and metro, the numbers have failed to increase as desired. Disha Mallick, 26, working as a pan-India geology consultant, commutes via the BRTS to work. “It is cost-efficient and good for comfort as it is usually empty in the morning. I pay around Rs 800 for a month which is less than what I would pay using Uber or Rapido. That is around Rs 1,500. However, when I go out to eat or something, I usually prefer Rapido due to connectivity,” she says.

Azad Gupta, an Uber Moto driver in Ahmedabad who transitioned from food delivery to passenger service, says he takes around four rides from corporate or IT professionals every day of his daily average of 20-25 rides. “People prefer us over public transport because of our availability, and we pick up and drop even from interior lanes”, says Gupta.

Looking towards London

Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioner M Thennarasan admits that “last mile connectivity is an issue that is being addressed”. Thennarasan shares with The Indian Express, “Public transport services should be treated as a comprehensive service rather than a stand-alone service. We are moving in that direction for seamless travelling.”

In a step forward, an AMC team went to London to study their public transport system for eight days in March. In London, 60 per cent of people using public transport.
The metro conundrum

When the Detailed Project Report (DPR) was prepared for the Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar metro rail project, it was estimated that 4.96 lakh people would ride it daily in 2018 with one train leaving every five minutes during peak hours and 8-20 minutes during lean hours.

This ridership was slated to increase to 6.69 lakh by 2021. The Ahmedabad portion of the project alone costs over Rs 10,773 crore. Today, about 75,000 passengers ride the metro daily, with the footfall rising during special days like a World Cup or an IPL match at the Motera Stadium when the metro train runs for extra hours on the route. Its ridership on such days has crossed one lakh.

“Multimodal connectivity” is something that the Ahmedabad Transport system is trying to achieve with its Metro, BRTS, AMTS and connect them together and also key areas like the Airport and Railway Station moving forward, claim GMRC officials.

With Rijit Banerjee