Sir,
Through media, I got to know about the ‘Mo Bus’ service, but last week I had an opportunity to travel in a ‘Mo Bus’ from bus stand near Bhubaneswar railway station.
After a lot of queries, I boarded a bus from the airport to Nandankanan but found it so difficult to identify the bus number and its selected stoppages. It is so confusing and haphazard that a layman would notbe able to catch the bus.
The sad part was that buses were coming out of the bus-stands with hardly any passengers inside. There was no office or helpdesk, no announcements to guide the common man.
My suggestion is bus-stands should always have an enquiry counter/helpdesk with due announcement facilities to guide the people about bus routes, stoppages, destinations, etc.
Detailed routes of the buses should be present in the bus stops as well as engraved on the body of the bus for better understanding of the commuters. This system is prevalent in metro cities like Kolkata and New Delhi. There is another type of bus which runs in the twin city called as ‘DTS City Bus’ different from ‘Mo Bus’.
Denizens are not well aware of its numbers, routes and services. The new bus service should be user friendly. It is a fact that 60 per cent of the city inhabitants are managing with their own vehicles and 30 per cent population is quite dependent on autos and hardly 10 per cent are relying on city bus services. But systematic route planning, compatibility in approach and frequency in service may be useful to the beneficiaries.