Oct/04/2015

           In this post , I will share  lessons which I learnt after traveling with various kinds of Budapest public transport modes for 6 consecutive days and how those can be implemented across Indian cities; with public and private partnership quite easily.


I had spent more than 10 years in Bangalore and seen it getting messier year by year.  Always thought why can’t India can have efficient urban public transport system.

       

 What’s Best In Budapest

  Population 2 million + 


Different means of Public Transport

1.  Underground Metro running every 3 – 4 mins first one is almost century old

       

  2.  Electric buses – pollution free 


3.  Trams


4.  Buses

  5.  Bikes on hire – connecting different subway stations 

Regular service starts quite early and runs till late night. Also they have late nightly services.

I’ve seen similar system working perfectly across cities like Berlin , Paris  , Madrid ,  Barcelona , Prague.


     The main brain behind this brilliant system was that of Mór Balázs ( Middle Class Hungarian , who studies in England and come back to contribute development of his country ) 


http://www.bkk.hu/bmt/docs/BMT_en.pdf 


http://www.bkv.hu/en/the_history_of_bkv/the_history_of_bkv_part_1


http://www.bkv.hu/en/the_history_of_bkv/the_history_of_bkv_part_2


http://www.budapestbylocals.com/budapest-public-transport.html

What is WORST in Bangalore

Population 8 million + and growing each year without any control


Being IT capital of India or I can say Asia, it doesn’t have a good public transport system. Each person has to rely on either 2 / 4 wheeler or office cab / bus to commute.


Last 10+ years ( 2002 – 2013.. ) this has resulted in tremendous pollution , waste of precious man hours , waste of money on fuel and unnecessary daily stress


Government has start building metro since last 5+ years and it’s going on snail pace and it was badly planned.


During construction , the life if people staying and commuting around the construction site was hell.


I’m not sure why planner didn’t think of underground solution , which has worked best across major european cities like Berlin , Paris, Madrid , Barcelona , Prague , Budapest.


The disadvantages of making is over ground were loss of thousands of trees , hell of pollution during construction  , even after construction slow moving metro etc


Government is more concerned about prosperity of automobile and oil industry than health of common man and preserving nature / environment.


The same story is true for other India cities.

What’s going wrong ?? 


1.  The educated middle class who runs India ( by giving taxes , by producing educated next generation ) doesn’t bother to get involved in such major projects which directly affects their quality of life and city.


2.  Middle class in India has got tons of patience with bad governance happening all over places.


3.  Majority of corrupt government employees running and ruining country since last 67 years.  They don’t have any fear of loss of job irrespective their performance , skills as it exists in private sectors of India.


4.  It’s the middle class because of whom IT has come to India and now India is IT major. Not only it is writing majority of software code but producing CEO of USA companies like Sathya , Sundar etc


5. Narayan Murthy the founding father of India IT industry is also from Middle class.



As I had mentioned in section related Budapest , it was middle class educated person  Mór Balázs who was responsible for making Budapest really a world class city to live and enjoy.   

If middle class across India cities unite and work together things will be much better similar to Europe and USA.