Just a few days ago, I was very happy to see that BMTC had introduced Yelli Iddira.
"Yelli Iddira?" is a service provided by CL Infotech Pvt Ltd to BMTC commuters to track buses (presently only VOLVO) using on-line GPS data provided by BMTC .
How to use:
Supposing you are in Koramangala, and wish to go to Electronics City. The VOLVO bus route no V356C, connecting Kempe Gowda Bus Station and Electronic City (refer ‘route info’ above), touches Koramangala at Big Bazaar, St John’s hospital, Water tank Jn, Kripanidhi College, Madivala PS.
To know the current location of the buses along the route, send an SMS message to 99456 34666 reading ‘Yi V356C U’, where
· Yi stands for ‘Yelli Iddira?’,
· ‘V356c’ is the route number,
· ‘U’ stands for ‘up’ (buses heading out of the ‘starting station’ are
designated to as ‘up’, and buses heading towards the ‘starting
station’ are designated as ‘down’).
And, within a minute, you will receive a reply stating, for example, "Singasandra; Bangalore Dairy; Maharani’s College", meaning there are three buses on this route currently, each of them approaching the stops listed, after having left the previous stops. The bus approaching Singasandra is of no use to you now, and, depending on the time at your disposal, you may choose to catch either of the other two buses reaching up to one of the stops in / near Koramangala
I was really happy, because apart from anything else, I want to take the BIAL-bound Vayu Vajra buses. On the way to the airport, these buses start from the KuVemPu Nagara bus stand (BTM Layout) and literally pass opposite the front gate of my building. But…there is NO information about when the buses are likely to pass…so for me, the "yelli idheera" service would have meant that when I got the message that a Vayu Vajra was leaving KuVemPu nagara bus stand, I could to and stand at Shopper’s Stop on Bannerghatta Road, or at J P Nagar 3rd Phase bus stop, and take the bus.
But within a very few days, the service has been suspended (Divya Ravindranath of ESG phoned BMTC and confirmed this.)
What on earth is the sense of starting some initiative amongst much fanfare, not to mention expenditure of time and effort, only to abandon it within a few days? Why are such initiatives not well-thought-out enough to survive?
BMTC is one of the few Government organizations running at a profit…but such snafus take away from its image. Could we have the sms service re-introduced again, quickly, please? ⊕
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