An accident analysis report by the Bengaluru Traffic Police (BTP) has shown that government buses caused more accidents than private buses, which state-run bus companies attributed to more trips and larger distances covered.
Both government and private buses accounted for 46 out of over 600 accidents in 2021. Out of these, the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) buses causes 27 fatal accidents, as against seven by KSRTC and 12 by private buses.
BMTC’s accident tally was 27 in 2020 and 42 in 2019.
“We have 6,000 buses covering lakhs of kilometres in around 50,000 trips a day. This could be the reason for the higher number of accidents,” said BMTC managing director V Anbu Kumar said. “Whatever the reason may be, accidents and deaths cannot be justified. So, we will train our drivers and officers and sensitise them in a better way so that accidents can be avoided.”
KSRTC authorities offered a similar reason. The state transport corporation was responsible for causing eight fatal accidents in the city in 2020 and 17 in 2019.
“Our buses run 7,000 trips in Bengaluru. Sometimes, (the accident) might be the mistake of our drivers and sometimes it could be the other riders/drivers,” said KSRTC’s chief traffic manager Prabhakara Reddy G T.
Among several steps the company takes to prevent accidents, it trains drivers on safe driving and road safety almost on a daily basis in its depots. “We have also introduced incentives like gold and silver medals for safe driving,” he said.
Both the bus corporations said changes in traffic signals and road infrastructure is necessary to prevent accidents. Though private buses take lesser trips than government buses, the number of fatal accidents they cause has increased in the last three years. While the fatal accidents they caused were nine in 2019 and 2020, it was 12 in 2021.
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