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Approximately 4,000 attendees utilised public transportation, including buses and the metro, for the 12th edition of the Bangalore Literature Festival.
Srinivas Alavilli, a fellow at WRI, said the people have made significant use of the free electric bus shuttle service provided under contract by the Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) from Vidhana Soudha Metro Station (Exit A).
Volunteers from Personal2Public have arranged free bus services for literature festival attendees, providing transportation between the venue and the metro station on December 2 and 3. The main aim of the initiative is to encourage them to use public transport instead of personal vehicles.
“On Saturday, Personal2Public was a big hit. We estimate a total of 4,200 people came to the venue using public transport (metro and bus) by utilising the feeder shuttle service from Vidhana Soudha to Lalit Ashok. Each of the four feeder buses did 40 trips between metro station (160 total trips) and the venue and without any hitch and most of the trips back to metro are standing room only till 8 PM. The first trip started at 8 AM,” Mr Alavilli said.
“People were extremely happy to have used public transport as it helped them avoid the hassle of driving and traffic congestion and parking which was full within the first couple of hours. Even if we count 1 car per 4 people, that’s a terrific 1000 cars off the streets heading towards BLF which saw massive crowds on day 1. We extend our gratitude to the dedicated BMTC staff for their tireless efforts in providing continuous pick-up and drop-off services throughout the entire day,” he added.
