BANGALORE: Almost a week after Namma Metro’s launch but the feeder buses, specially designed to facilitate connectivity to Metro stations, have no takers; though the Metro ride between M G Road and Byappanahalli is packed with commuters. Even on the sixth day after the launch, long queues of enthusiastic commuters are seen waiting outside M G Road station to personally experience the first Metro rail facility in the city. But contrast it to the empty feeder buses parked outside the M G Road Station. “We ran 11 buses since morning and have not earned a single rupee yet,” says Muniraju, a bus conductor on one of the feeder buses. Currently, this bus picks up commuters along a small route comprising Mayo Hall, Shoolay Circle and Richmond Road. Bus conductors and drivers feel that there are no commuters on this route willing to take the bus to the Metro station. When, Express asked a few drivers for a reason, they say that Namma Metro is a popular tourist destination and that the festive rush is deterring regular commuters, who prefer using the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) buses to commute. Another setback to the operations is that a majority of commuters travel from Shivaji Nagar or Majestic and they travel by BMTC too to reach the Metro “Eighty per cent of the regular commuters travel from Majestic Bus Stand and Shivajinagar. But there are no feeder buses carrying commuters from these two points,” said Patil, a bus driver. BMTC presently runs 64 feeder buses along 26 routes. Most commuters are seen either walking from Shivajinagar to the M G Road station or taking the regular BMTC bus. The other option available to commuters from Shivajinagar is to take a feeder bus starting at The New Indian Express junction. It is believed that the feeder buses have managed to carry only 8 to 10 passengers per ride. But there are over 50,000 passengers travelling along the Reach 1 route on an average. Though BMRCL believes that the ‘thrill’ of riding the metro will not last for long, these feeder buses seem to be of no use even during peak commuter rush. FEEDER BUSES TO MAJESTIC After plying 11 empty buses on the feeder bus route reaching M G Road station on Wednesday, bus conductors approached the chief of the bus depot to seek permission to ferry commuters from Majestic instead. “We realised that there were many people who wanted to go to Majestic from this station. So we asked the chief to give us permission to take these buses to Majestic and back. We have more commuters on this route,” say a group of bus conductors and drivers outside the M G Road station.
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