A Super Short Note on Delhi's Local Buses

For nearly nine months now the Delhi Transport Corporation has started what are now called the "Delhi Electronic Vehicle Interconnector" or DEVI routes which are primarily PMI Regio Buses (9 meter) and JBM EcoLife (also 9 meters) buses (though primarily the first one from my estimation which happens to be cheaper)

These buses were initially acquired under the name of the "Mohallah" Buses, the word literally meaning "local" buses, these buses bought specifically for local usage were deployed mostly on local routes initially.

And eventually, these bus routes were eventually deprecated as they didn't make enough fare box revenue and these buses were then used to substitute the diminishing 12 meter fleet. Thus put them onto the main routes.

Eventually new routes were drafted and allegedly from the conversations I heard there was a court case again the BJP government which resulted in all 9 meter buses being shifted off of the shorter routes connecting metro stations and major bus stop changes, this resulted in at one point, my local service running in a circular pattern from New Ashok Nagar Metro Station to the local community hotspots and then back to the Metro station to amass at least 7 buses running in the anti clock wise direction.

Appallingly, it took that many buses to get the actual frequency on the route to be something tolerable where I would from my college a 17 minute walk on a hostile road away instead wait for the bus which were usually every 3 to 4 minutes in most cases.

This number has now been brought down to 4 buses in each direction and thus the frequency is now bad enough where I have to walk or rely on the longer distance routes and their usually better GTFS-RT Presence. (For those not in the know, https://pis.delhitransport.in/ exists and is very useful!)

With that we arrive to somewhere around now as I write this article, I had initially missed writing the opening of this article when these buses started as my phone had been stolen off of me back in March, as we arrive back to being much closer to the one year anniversary of these buses, with several route redesigns and repurposing for longer distance buses, I'd say the DTC has changed a lot in its struggles in the past year of me riding it, having gone away from a massively unreliable fleet without GTFS-RT feeds, into now being shamed for it losses by a farebox revenue hungry government, but with major improvements in many parts of its services that I can very much say exist in improving service.

I think a small chat I had with one of the drivers last week really motivated me to write this article, this was one of the times a DEVI bus arrived at my bus stop to whiz me away to college as my feet had recently got hurt and I was at the mercy of not walking, when I mentioned the fleet on this route being limited to 4 buses he mentioned how they had to cut their loses as most of the people wanting public transit local mobility were women within the area who ride free on the DTC, and otherwise the routes "500 rupee se zada nahi bana ti thi" ("didn't make more than 500 INR [~ >5 EUR]"). I really do want to write a longer article about the DTC and how it serves the marginalised communities of Delhi as the DMRC has taken over the more posh parts of the transit need, maybe soon, for now, I just plan on writing a few more shorter articles before I head off to bed!

Most of the article is personal experience and anecdotes, I would like to add sources but I am currently serving on limited spoons and only some of this ever got reported on so my apologies on that-

I am untrustworthy of local heroes and their unsourced tails, but when the paper trail runs dry, we must wander in and embrace the spirit of the weirdo blog writer's territory who on wrote everything down 7 hours before they had to be up for classes :]