On March 8, 66% of BMTC passengers were women

BENGALURU: Stating that free travel for women on the occasion of International Women's Day (IWD) was a promotional step taken by Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) to build loyalty, its MD Sathyavathi G said she was elated by the response to the initiative.
"Domestic helps who cannot afford to travel in our AC Volvo buses got the opportunity to ride them for no cost, and that is the kind of future we are hoping for," Sathyavathi said. On March 8, women passengers flocked to BMTC bus stations all over the city to avail the free ride offered by the public transport utility on account of IWD. It ferries about 29 lakh passengers (both men and women) daily and estimates that 25% of them are women. But on that day, nearly 22 lakh or 66% of the 33 lakh passengers who took BMTC buses were women.
BMTC said on March 8, its collection was Rs 4.3 crore, about Rs 2 crore less than its usual daily revenue.
The utility had estimated that 20 lakh women would use its free service, but the total number crossed its expectations. Using census data from 2011, the agency had said that out of the city's 40 lakh female population, 20 lakh were expected to use the free ride offer on IWD. "Unfortunately, we did not have base numbers to compare as we have never maintained gender-segregated data. But going by the averages with us, this was record-breaking. I want to put in a system for the future that maintains such gender-segregated data," the MD added.
How data was collected
BMTC officials said the conductors were instructed to manually record the number of women passengers taking their buses. Generally, electronic ticketing machines (ETMs) are used to distribute tickets, but for women on IWD, free tickets were issued that were not generated via ETMs. A format for documenting the data was communicated to all staffers and the details were also written down in the 'trip sheets' which BMTC staffers otherwise also maintain for every trip.