Bus4us BuzzFest, An Inter-college Competition To Promote Bus Transport

The Urban Works Institute, along with civil society partners from Bengaluru, has collaborated with The Centre for Sustainability at Ramaiah Institute of Management to launch ‘The Bus4us BuzzFest’, an inter-college competition to engage the youth of the city to share ideas and suggestions to transform the image of buses in Bengaluru.

The launch event was held on Monday, 30 January 2023, at Ramaiah Institute Of Management in the presence of MA Saleem, Additional Director General of Police and Special Commissioner of Police Traffic, Bangalore and Zehera Naseem, IAS, Joint Director (Admin), Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT) and furthermore also attended the event. 

Bus4us is a campaign that promotes the use of buses and aims to garner support for a ‘State Urban Bus Mission’ to improve and augment bus services in cities across the state of Karnataka. Improving the quality of bus services is crucial to encourage more people to use them. Bus transportation becomes more attractive by increasing the number of buses, improving the infrastructure, and making the service more convenient for passengers. Thus, there is a need for more buses, better buses, and faster buses. 

Commenting on the Bus4us campaign, Shreya Gadepalli, Founder and Managing Trustee, The UrbanWorks Institute, said, “Buses have been  the primary means of transportation for the city of Bengaluru for many years. As the city continues to grow and evolve, it is clear that the BMTC bus service is a sustainable and effective solution to the issue of traffic congestion. Bus4us is a collaborative initiative to increase the buzz around buses, garner support for the widespread adoption of buses, and make it the preferred mode of transportation in Bengaluru” 

Dr. Meghna Verma, Head, Centre for Sustainability, Ramaiah Institute of Management, said,  “At the Centre for Sustainability, we believe that students and educational institutions play a significant role in implementing sustainable solutions that can make our cities more liveable. Besides research, over the last few years, we have introduced many initiatives and organised events highlighting the need to adopt environmentally friendly and sustainable practices to improve our cities. The Bus4us campaign aligns with our vision of promoting sustainable practices and taking environmentally conscious decisions in our everyday lives. We invite many more college students to join us in our endeavour to encourage more and more people to use buses and make Bengaluru India’s bus capital”.

Bus4us 5-point plan to transform Bengaluru's bus transportation

1. Double the fleet, double the happiness
2. Affordable and accessible: BMTC 
3. Bus Priority Lanes for Punctuality and Predictability
4. Connecting India's IT city one bus stop at a time: 
5. BMTC Bus Stop Bulletin Boards:

Bus4us BuzzFest features a range of contests, including a photography contest, poster-making competition, and social media competitions like reel creation. Any student studying in Bengaluru is eligible to participate in the competition, and they stand a chance to win Rs 25,000 prize money in each category. All submissions for the competition have to be made before 12 February 2023.