Mango Bus Stand Operations

Mango Bus Stand Operations

Service Process Matrix:  [pic 1]

The service process matrix is used to define how services would lie on a 2 by 2 matrix consisting of customer interaction with the service provider as one parameter and the other parameter being labour intensity. The kind of service rendered at the bus stand in mango is mainly operational in nature like booking tickets, scheduling buses etc. which does not require very high skill levels. Labour intensity is the cost of labour needed to render a certain amount of service, which is low for a bus stand.

Customer interaction is the amount of contact and say a customer has when he interacts with the service provider. Here the scheduling of the buses along the routes of cities like Ranchi etc. are already predefined and so is the ticket booking system. Thus there is not much scope of customer intervention and customization. Hence the bus stand is also low on this parameter as well.

Operational Improvements –

[pic 2]

This is the diagram of a typical bus’s flow through a city in a day starting from its bus stand and then returning back to it at the end of the journey. The most frequent buses from Mango are from Jamshedpur to Ranchi and both AC as well as non-AC buses ply on this route. Cost of a non-AC ticket is Rs 120 and that of an AC ticket is Rs 180. Besides this buses ply along other routes as well but the demand is lesser.

Buses can be imagined as systems for managing passenger transfer operations. The capacity will be dependent on the number of buses/passengers that can be served. Thus,

        Transfer capacity = (loading positions*availability)/occupancy time

1. Loading positions in the Mango bus stand are multiple and hence transfer capacity is more. However multiple loading positions often lead to scheduling issues as passengers may opt for a later bus rather than the bus which is next in line depending on seating conditions/choice of passengers. Thus it is advisable to keep only a single loading position for normal buses along a route.
2. This however cannot be implemented for AC buses as people may opt for AC buses for its better service. So the loading point for AC buses should be at a different queue than the normal bus queue. This will help to avoid scheduling issues and excessive bunching on the Jamshedpur-Ranchi route.
3. Currently the loading area contains buses in a queue and also autos in the same region. This leads to constriction of space for buses which often encroach upon the middle of the road. The auto rickshaws should only be allowed to park at their designated auto stand so as to prevent any jams/confusion in the loading area.
4. Currently most of the Ranchi plying buses form a single queue on the road for loading and a lot of empty space is there in the bus stand which is left majorly unutilized. The conductors are responsible for informing the passengers of the bus routes and in their enthusiasm to fill their buses first, the scheduling of buses get disrupted as later buses get loaded faster at times. All this can be avoided if the buses are only allowed to load passengers from designated queues inside the bus stop and not on the road. This will ensure unblocking of the road, proper scheduling of buses according to FIFO rule and independent of over-excited conductors. It will also lead to the proper utilization of the Mango Bus Stop space.
5. There can be designated spaces for different bus routes. This will ensure that passengers can directly identify buses along a given route instead of having to ask around and look for the conductor. This will save a considerable amount of non-valued added time and lead to a greater turnaround of the number of departures from the Mango Bus Stop.