Right from the days when it was known as BTS, travelling by bus meant endless wait at stands, unkempt and overcrowded buses. Reliability, connectivity and punctuality were never its strong points. Getting away from all this became an aspiration for the city's middle class.One of the first priorities, thus, for someone who lands a job in Bengaluru is to buy a two-wheeler. Little wonder that there are 50 lakh of them in the city today. In other words, half of Bengaluru's population does not depend on the BMTC for its commute.Even after BTS transformed into BMTC -a corporate entity only by name -it has not met its mission of providing peoplecentric, clean, reliable, affordable, comfortable, safe and choice mode of travel in the city.The workers' union too admits to this.General secretary HV Anantha Subba Rao says: “The BMTC runs over-aged buses. Some are not clean while a few buses do not even look good. This is not done. Besides, no commuter should be made to wait in the bus stand for more than five minutes."However, it has managed to provide two categories of services: the Volvo services and the ordinary services.While the Volvo services are clean and comfortable, they come at a price which ordinary citizens cannot afford for daily commutes. They are, however, a hit with airport travellers and IT employees. As for the ordinary services, little has changed. They continue to be as unreliable as they always were.The preferential treatment to Volvo users becomes clear in the words of a bus user: “The Vayu Vajra bus from Jayanagar to the airport is always punctual. But the ordinary service from the same point to say Shivajinagar or elsewhere is not so," observes Vinay Sreenivasa of the Bengaluru Bus Commuters' Forum.Urban expert V Ravichandar believes a certain number of buses should be set aside for flexible services. “The timings of the present services are rigid. BMTC should introduce the aggregator model, using midi buses for more flexible services.“At best, BMTC has grown older and but never managed to close the yawning gap, thanks to the city's burgeoning growth.From 2,098 buses in 1997 to 6,250 buses in 2017, although the transport utility's fleet has trebled, ridership has only doubled.From about 24.5 lakh passengers in 1997, it grew to around 52 lakh in 2016.Sreenivasa believes that BMTC is caught in a high-tech image trap. “What's the point in introducing free wi-fi and air-conditioned buses when people struggle in packed buses that break down regularly?“ asks he.Most people in the know of BMTC's working believe that the number of buses and services should be doubled from the present 6,250 buses and 6,100 services. Without this, the corporation will not be able to achieve its target of meeting 60% share and 19,025 schedules by 2037. To the perpetual excuse of a fund crunch, Pawan K Mulukutla, urban transport expert at World Resource Institute, India, suggests three reforms, including fare restructuring.Rao points out that the social costs incurred by the BMTC (through concessional passes) should be absorbed by the government.“The state government should help in direct procurement of buses by providing capital cost or soft loans. The Motor Vehicle Tax for the four Corporations in Karnataka is levied as a percentage on their traffic revenue, whereas it is levied based on seat capacity for private operators. Hence, the private stage carriages continue to pay a lower rate per bus than BMTC," Mulukutla points out. Rao, Sreenivasa and Mulukutla believe bus fares should be reduced since using a two-wheeler is cheaper than taking the bus. Besides, there is many a political reason for BMTC's current problems. Despite being a corporation, political appointments to its board (not to mention their upkeep) deny it valuable professional expertise and increase financial burden and corruption, say insiders.Seeking autonomy for the BMTC, Rao notes: “The corporation will function like a professional organisation only if the MD is given a free hand, with clear targets and time lines," he noted.Despite all the pressures and constraints BMTC works under, the corporation has been making a turnaround financially.“During the year 2015-16, we earned a profit of Rs 13.73 crore and a gross revenue of Rs 2207.48 crore," BMTC MD Ekroop Caur said.New initiatives such as the intelligent transport system, electronic ticketing machines, GPS-based vehicle tracking systems are modernising operations. While the smart card-based fare system is not ready yet, efforts towards a common mobility card are underway . The long-pending demand for bus priority lanes is still being talked about but far from implementation.With the Metro, cab aggregators, autorickshaws also vying for the commuter's footfall, collaboration rather than competition appears to be the need of the hour. Caur believes that a unified metropolitan transport authority could bring about this.