MODIFICATIONS TO CITY BUS

This figure depicts the various modifications required to enable the existing city buses to 'comfortably' and safely transport more numbers of commuters who are required to travel standing. Presently city buses are 'super-jam packed' during peak hours with 250 or more commuters being transported under 'worse than hellish conditions'! Of the 250 commuters, only 44 travel seated; the rest of them have to travel under immense inconvenience. Standing erect is impossible; keeping your feet in a comfortable position is impossible...just place each of your feet wherever any space on the floor of the bus is available, you have to twist your body at various levels...at the waist [to avoid being crushed by the college bag being carried by a student beside you], at the neck to allow your 'neighbour' to stretch out his hand and take hold of the rod above. Movements of the bus while turning or changing speeds ad to your pressures...you have to exert every sinew of yours just to maintain your contorted posture. Believe me, I am not exagerating. The suffering and torture involved in traveling [standing] in an overcrowded city bus cannot be described in words...one has to personally experience this agony to understand what I am stating. I have seen a lady who had this complaint of her right shoulder getting dislocated. She told me that it was the first time it happened to her, was very painful, and she had to struggle to shove back her right limb back into the joint. Without her telling me I questioned her whether it occured in a bus. She said yes. This lady is now unable to lift even a pail of water...her limb gets pulled out of her shoulder joint.

This is the punishment commuters who are standing within the bus are being subjected to. In comparison, I feel that the suffering faced by those commuters who stand traveling upon the footboard is nil...they are no doubt traveling in a dangerous way but not in a painful way. If I have no other choice, I would prefer traveling in a painful way rather than in a dangerous way and I would prefer to walk a thousand miles rather than travel for one mile in this painful manner!

Bus travel, Troff or no Troff, has to be immediately rendered safe and comfortable. The modifications to the existing buses as depicted in the figure above along with other proposals given under Troff's document, have it in them the potential to render bus travel safe and comfortable.