PMPML starts ‘design studio project’ to beautify major bus stands across city

In a bid to provide better service to passengers, the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) has started a ‘design studio project’ to upgrade and beautify major bus depots across the city.

Starting with its pilot project, PMPML upgraded and beautified the Deccan Gymkhana bus stand, on Jungli Maharaj road near Garware bridge, in a month’s time.

Under the project funded by PMPML itself, new signage boards and operational changes will be made at the bus stands.

According to PMPML chairman and managing director, Nayana Gunde, the public transport utility has partnered with Cosign Modular Sign Systems company for the design studio project. “Under the pilot project, we worked on the beautification and upgradation of the Deccan Gymkhana bus stand over the past month. The goal of the project is to make bus information available to passengers and use the pilot project as a learning experience to the replicate it across the PMPML network. At the Deccan bus stand, the bus lanes have been separated now to reduce congestion and improve safety and comfort of passengers. Earlier, 90 per cent of the buses had to go from the outer lane of the stand and the inside lanes remained vacant leading to traffic congestion,” said Gunde. 

The bus stand is now divided into five lanes - first one is the outer lane (lane no.1), then internal two lanes (lane no. 2 A and 2 B), lane no. 3, 4 and 5. New signage boards displaying information about the buses plying on various routes of each lane, round route buses details and map of the entire upgraded bus stand have been installed across the bus stand. 

“The upgradation has helped us improve the operations at the bus stand and we are going to upgrade several other bus stands in the next phase. We are getting a good response from the passengers and this beautification and upgradation was much needed for the bus stand,” added Gunde. 

Vilas Jadhav, a senior citizen at the bus stop, said, “I travel from the Deccan bus stand to Nigdi daily for a part time job and since this upgradation, the congestion at the stand has reduced a lot. Earlier, we used to stand in the outer lane to board the buses and it was risky as bus drivers indulged in rash driving many a times. Now, there is a proper system in place, a new passenger can decipher from the signage boards and know which buses ply on what route and the buses will arrive on which lane of the bus stand.”