A comparative study of AMTS and BRTSIn the 70s, people had entered into the field of innovation and development of the industries and thus the opportunities for the public were much raised. People did not have any means of transport which created a hindrance in their development and thus there was an ultimate need for public transport in this period. Thus a concept of Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service (AMTS) was brought upon with a very simply organized structure being started with a very simple objective of business by identifying the needs and wants of the public. The mission and vision of the commission was to serve the people who cannot afford their personal transport and develop revenue by charging very nominal amount of money.

Later this became a convenient mode of transport for the people of Ahmedabad and thus AMTS bus stations were established on almost every street of the city for convenient, easy and fluent transportation. But there are no major modifications or changes that have taken place as far as the organization is considered, even though it is such a huge reliability for the public. The city holds 540 buses and has only one maintenance workshop in Jamalpur which has lead to incompetency of maintenance. It has been experienced by the passengers that even if the routs have permanent bus stands, buses are stopped 20 meters before or after bus station depending upon the drivers comfort. As the employees are not so literate, Employee behavior towards customers is lacking largely. Travelling with a ticket does not provide enough satisfaction due to uncontrolled environment and less safer transport. The deaths and injuries have risen considerably due to rash driving of the buses which has obviously created a negative image on the minds of the people.

AMTS partially understood the importance of loosing public support and thus they tried to provide customer amenities like Digital Route Boards, Semi Auto Door to avoid accidents, Emergency Windows, Fire kit were also equipped. They also came up with proper allocation of finance, Scheduled maintenance, transformation from diesel to CNG, advertisements on buses body to generate secondary revenue. Also, training of drivers and staff was planned. But still AMTS was not successful in developing an image of holy transport and failed to serve social responsibilities like facilitating physical challenged people, senior citizens, students etc due to burden of lacking financial health and management.

In 2009, Gujarat Infrastructure Development Board emerged with innovative new concept of public transport, BRTS (Bus Rapid Transit System). A special route for this system has been provided in the middle of the road so that there is no obstruction in its way. Immense use of information technology and timely accurate service providing transport deviated the citizens from older transport. BRTS served the priorities and securities to the citizen in transport which AMTS failed to serve. Success parameters of BRTS: Very reliable in terms of timings Easily available Less transport risk factor More satisfaction with less sacrifice Highly maintained Usage of Information Technology(GPS) Skilled driversApart from the above factors, the service used by the citizens belongs to middle class and lower class, while in case of AMTS the preferred customers were lower category people. Considering importance of environment, the guide ways of the BRTS are decorated with green plants and flowers. Every BRTS station is equipped with chunks of information which includes: Evolution of BRTS, route length, number of stations in city, number of buses on different routes, information of the vehicle, etc which can help in developing customer loyalty.

But as every coin has two sides there are some drawbacks of this transport system also. The speed of the buses is immensely high. Thus it requires additional security to ensure the road is clear and to avoid accidents at the junctions. Also due to BRTS the general travelling lane has significantly got over crowded.

Thus the reason of BRTS being preferred upon AMTS amongst the mass has significantly been churned out from the above topics. But the question that still arises is how many people in the city had shifted from their two wheelers and four wheelers to BRTS facility? The answer being absolutely none suggest that the success of BRTS is hidden behind the failure of AMTS.