Commute

In the hope that online procedures in the Regional Transport Offices (RTO) had improved and gave the user a smooth experience,  I tried to file an application for the renewal of my driving licence online through the ‘Parivahan’ portal, a few days ago. I was unable to complete the process and I received a message asking me to contact the local RTO office. I went to the RTO Chennai (North) early on the morning of Jan 29th to file the manual application Form 9 along with Form 7 as well as Form 1a and a medical certificate, duly completed along…

Union Budget mentions Bengaluru Suburban Rail:  Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced in the Union Budget that Bengaluru suburban network could spring up at a cost of ₹17,000 crore. It had agreed to invest about 20% of the total expenses, with ₹1,745 crore in two years. State government will invest another 20%, and the rest needs to be funded through loans. The rail project will be partly elevated inside the core areas of the city. Congress leader Dinesh Gundu Rao agreed that the project can take off when both the State and the Centre contribute 20% of the cost.  They both…

Pavithra Sudhakar, a Hyderabad resident, used to spend about an hour travelling to her office daily. A senior software engineer in Wipro, she had to travel the 12 kms to office by cab or auto. Then, a year back, she started using the carpooling app sRide. “I tried it after getting emails from my company (sRide has a tie-up with Wipro). Since then I have been using carpooling to go to office and back, daily. My travel time is only 40 minutes now,” she says. For Pavithra, this time saving is the biggest advantage of carpooling. “The person driving the…

Last month, on Christmas morning, residents of Purva Sunshine apartment woke up to an absurd sight of a car tipped into the front storm water drain. Couple of years ago, children came out to board their school bus only to find a two-wheeler rider, a hit-and-run victim, breathing his last. Our security and maintenance staff have been mute witness to the accidents that happen on a weekly basis at least. Fast forward to the present, in less than a week, there have been three separate fatal/critical hit and run accidents in front of Purva Sunshine apartments on Sarjapura main road,…

The indefinite strike by workers of the transport department has completely derailed commute in Metropolitan Chennai, a city lauded for its integrated public transport module. Thousands of commuters are stranded and roads are gridlocked in the city, but it is impossible to miss the sense the anger among transport department workers who have been off the roads for four days now. They did not call off the strike, despite being warned of termination from service by the Madras High Court. What could have prompted them to this level of desperation? It’s time to take a deeper look. The minimum ticket fare…

From new year parties to short-lived hopes on metro trains to medical strike, it has been an eventful week! New Year pulls in with a peaceful bang:  This year’s New Year Eve stood out for its high-security leash on the celebrations. One man wanted to file an FIR against his wife's molestation and 60 were arrested for creating some ruckus. But no major bawdy, lewd or rowdy scenes marred the noise and pomp like last year. The city’s security teams seem to have pulled out all plugs to preempt bad news. A special 16,000-plus policeman squad, 3,000 home guards, 100…

If you were to ask any commuter in any Indian city about their daily pet peeve, it would be the time spent in traffic. And now, Ola, the new age mobility platform serving 110 cities with 8 lakh vehicles on the roads has presented a year-end glimpse of 'how India commuted' based on their records. Some highlights from the top seven cities - Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkata, and Chennai: Total average traffic speed dropped by a whopping 2.9km/hr with Bangalore registering the slowest at 17.2km/hour Ola Share has saved 4 times the fuel from last year, telling of the high customer adoption…

On December 22nd, a woman was forced to deliver her child at the Mangalore Railway Junction (MAJN), after an ambulance failed to reach the remote area due to the narrow roads leading up to it. The 26-year-old woman, identified as Lata, a migrant labourer from Madhya Pradesh, was waiting for the train at the station, when she started experiencing labour pain and repeatedly cried out for help. Abubakker, a local rickshaw driver, immediately called 108 emergency services and directed them to the location. However, though the nearest ambulance reached the spot, the vehicle could not drive up to the station…

If you have walked through the IIT Kanpur campus of late, you would have seen a lot more cycling activity than usual, thanks to Ola’s ‘Pedal’, a new cycle-sharing pilot project. Given the results of its Kanpur experiment, the company hopes to expand gradually to more college campuses, residential townships and tech parks. Ola put out a statement that summed up its aim to steer the activity in various campuses through “superior technology and availability to book on the same app…” that is hoped to solve “larger issues like pollution and congestion…” Check out its video here. Other commercial initiatives…

The death of 19-year-old Sanjay Aditya Giri on November 29th, as he was crossing the Outer Ring Road at Bellandur isn’t a one-off tragedy. It is an everyday reality for people who have chosen to live on that stretch.  On December 6th, residents of the neighbourhood plan a human chain to demand skywalks on what is one of Bengaluru’s busiest roads. Skywalks and better pedestrian facilities are not a new demand. In 2015, just before the BBMP elections, citizens met with candidates, including Asha Suresh who won the elections, as well as the Mahadevpura MLA Arvind Limbavali to request for…