Public data enthusiasts evaluate access to public transport in Bengaluru

Public transport should be accessible within a walking distance of 1-1.5km. With the metro, this is only present in the Central Business District. Other constituencies, which are bigger, have much less connectivity.

Traffic, or mobility in general, has been one of the biggest challenges Bengaluru has faced for decades now. While diverse solutions in the form of flyovers, underpasses, signal-free corridors, grade separators, and road-widening have been tried, the issue has defied a sustainable solution. Most experts have pointed out that the only way to solve congestion is to plan to move people, not personal vehicles, and that public transport is the best investment for the city. 

Problem statement

In the “Bengaluru Constituencies Datajam”, conducted by OpenCity.in on April 1st, we looked at public transport in terms of accessibility to Metro and BMTC buses, and evaluated it across the 28 assembly constituencies in Bengaluru Urban district.

Data sources

Methodology

  • To evaluate availability of buses, the number of bus stops in a constituency and the number of daily trips at these stops was used.
  • To evaluate accessibility to Metro, number of metro stations in a constituency and average distance to closest Metro station was used. We calculated the distance to stations by splitting each constituency into small hexagons using h3 index with a resolution of 9.

What we found

Metro access

Graph of number of metro stations by constituency compared to the population
Number of metro stations by constituency compared to the population. Source: TheMetroRailGuy.com

Mahadevapura is the second most populated ward in Bengaluru (based on voter rolls data), and the recent inauguration of the K R Puram to Whitefield line gave the area’s residents a big boost in public transport. 

Even though they have significant populations, Byatarayanapura, Yelahanka and Anekal are poorly served by the metro. At present, seven constituencies with zero Metro stations have close to 25% of the city’s population. The opening of the Phase-2 lines across the city, as well as to the airport line, would go a long way in addressing the gaps.

Public transport should be accessible within a walking distance of 1-1.5km. However, with the metro, such accessibility as seen from the map below, is only present in the Central Business District (CBD). Other constituencies, which are bigger and more populated, have much less connectivity in comparison.


Read more: Data analysts evaluate civic participation in Bengaluru’s 28 constituencies


To give a clearer picture, we calculated the average distance a person must travel to reach the closest Metro station. In most constituencies, commuters must on an average travel over 2km to reach the station. This prevents people from adopting sustainable options for the last mile transit and reduces accessibility of Metros to a large portion of the public. Although Mahadevapura can now boast 11 Metro stations, they are only in the northern part of the constituency and are too far away from the rest of the constituency area.

Map of proximity to metro stations by Bengaluru Assembly constituencies
 Proximity to metro stations by constituency

Access to bus stops

Similar to metro availability, it was observed that BMTC bus stops are highly concentrated in the CBD area and the peripheral constituencies have much less bus connectivity.

Map of density of bus stops by Bengaluru Assembly constituencies
Density of bus stops by constituency

However, when we included the number of daily trips at the stops, the situation was slightly different. Some of the peripheral constituencies did better on this front, mainly because bus frequency is good on arterial roads, like highways, and gets poorer as you move further into the constituencies. And while core city constituencies might do worse, they usually have access to more bus stops depending on where they want to go. Increasing the number of trips in stops that are farther away from arterial roads, or short services that lead to arterial roads where more buses ply can help more people.

Conclusions

It was observed that  within most constituencies, the areas closest to the Metro are also the ones with better bus connectivity, in terms of both number of bus stops and higher frequency of buses.

The constituencies with fewer number of bus-stops even when they have a closer proximity to metro stations suffer from poor connectivity within the constituency.

Graph of comparison of wards on metro connectivity and bus stops
Comparison of wards on metro connectivity and bus stops. Size of the spheres represents the population of the wards

Not every constituency may need more bus stops/metro stations. The need for it depends on the inflow and outflow of the population within the constituency. It is important to study and understand the strategic locations, which could prove helpful for the citizens of the constituency. 

Although Metro connectivity is being expanded with more stations and lines under construction, it is too time-consuming and costly to connect the entire city through Metro. It has taken a decade to complete even the current limited metro connectivity we have right now.

The main take-away from the datajam is the need to take a more holistic approach to transit planning, which requires multiple government organisations/corporations to coordinate with each other. The rail and buses need to complement each other to ensure maximum connectivity.

In this regard, two actions that can immediately impact the ease of commute are leveraging the existing rail network (Suburban rail) and increased BMTC funding to procure more buses for efficient last-mile journeys (feeder buses).


Read more: Data enthusiasts analyse access to education and facilities in schools across Bengaluru’s constituencies


With these and more changes, we hope to someday reach a state where private vehicle ownership in the city is seen as an indulgent choice rather than as a necessity.

Map of all the planned Metros and Suburban rail network in Bengaluru
Map of all the planned Metros and Suburban rail network in Bengaluru. Source: Wikimedia commons

*With inputs from Vivek Mathew on the bus frequency.

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