Bus ki Baat
This campaign was initiated to address the declining ridership of Ahmedabad’s AMTS and BRTS buses, despite significant investment. Despite being affordable and extensive, buses are often perceived as inconvenient, unsafe, or unreliable, leading to a growing preference for private vehicles. Bus Ki Baat” was therefore conceived as a community-driven engagement campaign to bring the voices of commuters into the centre of transport conversations. The initiative aimed to understand how people actually experience bus travel, covering aspects such as comfort, punctuality, last-mile connectivity, affordability, and personal safety.
"When people stop riding the bus, cities don't just lose riders — they lose the most democratic form of transport ever built."
- Bus Ki Baat, TUL Foundation
About the initiative
Bus ki Baat was initiated as citizen-led public engagement campaign by The Urban Lab Foundation to reimagine and celebrate Ahmedabad’s bus based public transport systems, BRTS and AMTS through lived experience, active discourse, and collective reflection, to identify key gaps in the system, and to identify actionable recommendations in order to assist authorities to make it safer, more inclusive, and resilient.
Conducted through curated bus rides across AMTS and BRTS routes bringing together students, professionals, civil societies, and transport authorities, the initiative combined observation, interaction, and discussion to understand how buses function as everyday public spaces. During and after the ride, there were activities planned to engage the users with elements of bus transit. The conversation and the discourse that follows helped us understand their needs and challenges of using buses.
Impacts
Bus ki Baat contributed to rebuilding the relationship between citizens and public transport by transforming routine bus travel into a shared civic experience. The initiative amplified user voices, particularly around the needs of women, elderly persons, persons with disabilities, and low-income groups, thereby reinforcing safety, inclusivity, and resilience in urban mobility.
- Increased public awareness of AMTS and BRTS operations.
- A consolidated list of gaps in infrastructure, maintenance, operations, integration, ride quality, grievance redressal, passenger information system, and enforcement.
- Compilation of actionable, citizen-backed recommendations to fill the gaps in the areas of improvement.
- Increased civic and stakeholder engagement by fostering collaboration among students, professionals, citizens, and organizations, all while celebrating the city’s transport heritage.
What we hope to change
With Bus ki Baat we hope to rebrand buses and other forms of public transport as safe, efficient, inclusive, and comfortable mobility choices rather than a last resort. This initiative also seeks to encourage improvements in the identified areas, while fostering civic pride and ownership of public transport by bringing citizen voices into the formal planning process. In the long term, we envision Bus ki Baat contributing to increased ridership, reduced dependence on private vehicles, and a shift towards more sustainable, liveable, and people-centric urban mobility in Ahmedabad.
