[shipnil]

This is next review on Bangalore Pune / Pune Bangalore Sector.

Operator: National Travels
Scheduled Time : 9:30 from Madiwala. Bus departed 10 minutes late.

Bus condition: fair. Blankets were provided. No water bottles. Like the previous Neeta bus, even this bus had a cracked windshield.

Stoppages: stopped only twice. 5 minutes stop at 5 am near one of the toll booth and second one of 20 minutes at 8:20 am before kolhapur. The sore point was the quality of stop. It had no decent washrooms.

Scheduled arrival time: 12 pm in Pune. The bus was at Katraj at 12:10.

Driving style was pretty decent. The other point I did not like was it enters the city area on Satara road to drop people at their office. The dostance is hardly a kilometer but then it consumes your time in entering, dropping people, taking U turn and again join the bypass. I had to get down at Wakad flyover but due to above routine, it added 20 minutes to my travel.

[Ashley2]

Originally Posted by shipnil

... second one of 20 minutes at 8:20 am before kolhapur. The sore point was the quality of stop. It had no decent washrooms.
...

This is the same place where Sharma, Neeta all stops.
I felt the same when I made Blore - Pune in Sharma. That was the first Volvo Multi axle I shift bus.

[TKMCE]

There was a small news item in yesterday (Sunday) Malayalala Manorama that Kallada is going to introduce Mercedes Sleeper on Bangalore Trivandrum. Fare mentioned was Rs 1,300 and features individial LCD monitors in each berth.

The timings given were 2130 Dep BLR and 0700 Arr at TRV, hence I guess the routing will be via Salem,Madurai and Nagercoil.

[thewhiteknight]

Originally Posted by babu.sundaram

Isn't this a thing that indicates speeding, if not rash (unless couple of breaks / stoppings skipped)?

That's probably true. Although I also think that it is a combination of skipped breaks and some amount of speeding. Having said that, I am not completely sure how much time the entire journey took.

[shipnil]

Originally Posted by shipnil

This is next review on Bangalore Pune / Pune Bangalore Sector.

The next review is of KSRTC. I took this service from Pune to Bangalore.

Bus: B9R
Scheduled Departure Time: 7:45 pm. Departed at 8:15 pm.
Bus condition: Very good. Blankets and 0.5 liter water bottles were provided.
Stoppages: Stopped at Hotel Natraj just after Khed Shivapur toll booth for 30 minutes. Seems to be a favored stop for KSRTC, VRL. Lots of buses were parked. The parking was behind the hotel. This is just before McDonalds on Pune Satara road.
Washrooms were okay. Food, I don’t know. I eat only biscuits on long bus journeys.

Next stop was near to some Kamats Upachar, about 2.5 hrs before Bangalore. Washrooms were poor.

Scheduled Departure Time: 9:45 am. It arrived at 10:45 am at Majestic.

The driving style was okay during the night but in the morning the driver was cutting the lane all the time. Following are some of my observations regarding overall experience. This bus was coming from Mumbai. KSRTC does not have a stop near Wakad. While booking I saw one of the pick up point at Paud Road and I thought it to be around Chandni Chowk. But it is actually near Kinara Hotel on Paud Road. Since I had already booked it, I had no choice but to take 6 seater and other modes to reach this place. Also, the bus after picking up the passengers goes to Swargate bus stop. Stops there to pick up other passengers and again crosses the city using Sinhgad road to reach Bangalore bypass. This effectively wastes 1.5 hrs. My bus actually started from Swargate at 9 pm. Also, I thought the time they lost would be covered during the night but it did not happen. Seems they take the slogan “Sleep like a baby” too seriously, hence drive sedately, but for people who are short on time, this does not help.

My recommendations. Take this only if you live in city areas of PMC, that too near Swargate and if you have no urgent commitments next day. Swargate should be your boarding point of choice. This way you can save that 1 hr that you lose if you board it from Paud road or better still take a bus that starts from Pune, Swargate itself.

Next journeys I intend to do either by Kesineni or SRS.

[coolclouds]

Originally Posted by shipnil

Next journeys I intend to do either by Kesineni or SRS.

Thanks for the review.

My friend too is looking for a reliable operator between Bangalore and Pune and we are happy with your reviews on this sector.

Please try SRS once and post your review. My friend used SRS two-three times and was happy with their service.

[grazd]

I've travelled on Kesineni on the Pune-BLR route and back on multiple occasions and found the service quite good. New B9R buses driven reasonably.

However in view of the recent raids in HYD on many bus operators including Kesineni, Sharma, Kaleswari etc, I am not sure how wise it is to continue to use these pvt guys.

[Mister_M]

Originally Posted by SujineRaj

...
1)Clean buses and sheets in Volvos and sleeper Buses.
2) Never experienced them driving rashly or taking risky maneuvre
......

Hello SujineRaj,

I would say you must have been really lucky without any Major problems with KPN in your 8 year span!

I myself have been a big KPN fan from 2001 to 2009 when we took our last bus with them. Service was really awesome in the initial years, every travel was so good - I was really marketing for them a lot without getting paid I was a "Frequent" traveller with them and more than 80% of my trips with them was on A/C.

As their fleet steadily started increasing, things started changing. Main problems that I and many of my KPN friends faced off-late included:
* extreme delays
* atrocious behavior of their drivers (especially many of their volvo drivers)
* Bug-Bites on old-volvo seats / sleepers
* etc...

Having quoted these, I must admit that most of my travels with such bad experiences were during peak-holiday periods as my travels were mostly linked with some public holiday.

May be because of extreme rush in each of such occasion - they had things out of control. During such peak-season times, they tend to use most of their repaired / back-up buses from their garage into service with many additional trips to en cash the crowd. Point to be noted is that these buses tend to break frequently & in the event of break-downs, they had NO spare buses for emergencies.

My final experience with them was in 2009 when I had to send off my wife to her Coimbatore. I came to drop her at Bommanahalli at around 09:00 PM for a planned 09:30 PM Volvo journey. No news until their last few buses started departing at around 11:45 PM. The whole place became deserted with only 10 - 15 passengers of this bus. KPN staff were of no help, they kept on replying that the bus is "on the way". It was at 12:30 PM they said that the bus that was planned for this trip was actually late due to a tyre-burst at Hosur and it has passengers on board too. Which means, the bus that was actually "on the way" had to drop the passengers at all the Bangalore drop points (Bommanahalli, Madiwala, Wilson Garden, Kalasipalayam, etc..) and then come back to Bommanahalli to pick us up! The bus finally arrived at 2:30 AM! Most affected was the pregnant lady who was with her husband and another 2-3 years old kid, quite an awful situation was it!

Many many "untold" stories are occuring in recent days with KPN and many travellers complain that they take their passengers for granted.

Just google out for "KPN complaints" and you will find hundreds of them in the recent years. I personally started preferring ABT & more self-drives by my car where ever possible after this incident.

[dhandapanik]

Last week had a travel in Pollachi-Chennai route and returned to Madurai from Chennai on the same day.

Onward Journey: Pollachi-Chennai
Operator: ARC Travels

I have used KPN, ABT, TNSTC-Coimbatore UD few times in Pollachi-Chennai route, but didnt get a chance to try other operators. KPN Introduced a Volvo Multi-Axle on 12-Jan-12 in this route via Tirupur. I Initially thought of trying this multi-axle.After Tirupur both KPN Multi-axle and ABT takes Vellore route. I want to get down at Tambaram/Chrompet. So Trying KPN Multi Axle and ABT is ruled out. Now i have the option of SRM Sleeper, Joy Travels Non AC and ARC 12M AC. I havent tried any of these operators. Somehow i didnt like to take a sleeper, So SRM option is also gone. Now i have only Joy Travels and ARC. Finally decided to try ARC and booked the ticket. Departure time was 8.15 Pm. I reached the boarding point at Pollachi by 8.10 PM and the bus was already there. TN37 BC 1100(DeepaLakshmi) did the job on that day. It was a 36 seater 12M bus. It started off without any delay. Since its a 36 Seater in 12M, i felt very comfortable and enough leg space was there.

Five people boarded at Pollachi and due to some emergency one person got down soon after we started. Four more joined us in Udumalpet and 7 joined us in Palani. Till chennai we were 15 passengers on board.

They played a new tamil movie till 11.00 PM. Two drivers was there and both the drivers maintained the speed well and no rash driving at all. Finally got down at Tambaram by 5.15 AM. Had a good sleep till chennai. It also had a break for 10 min in a roadside restaurant were most of the TNSTC/SETC buses and private operators used to stop. To my surprise noticed brand new 12M 43 Seater UD of SETC with TN01 AN registration heading to chennai.

Return Journey: Chennai-Madurai
Operator: SETC

Eventhough i have used SETC buses in Madurai-Pollachi/Coimbatore route, havent tried it in Madurai-Chennai route. So this is the first time i'm trying an SETC UD in this route. I have used TNSTC-Madurai's AC/UD services in this route on many occassions. They are well maintained compared to SETC Junkies. Since we got 200+ New UD buses, i want to try them out before they lose their new look.

Being a weekday, we didnt book any ticket and we are not sure whether we will get a new bus in the route which we are booking. So decided to get an unreserved seat directly. When we went to Madurai Bay, we didnt have any new SETC UDs there. So searched in the next bay where we will have Tirunelveli, Tuticorin, Nagercoil, sencottah buses. Saw a new UD TN01 AN 0122 of Tuticorin depot standing. Almost 50% of the new UDs which we got didnt have air suspension fitted. So cross checked and this bus had it.

Enquired the conductor for the ticket and we boarded the bus. He asked us to take the seat nos after 15. This guy runs as a Bye Pass rider and when we talked to the crew, they said it wont go inside trichy. Ticket fare was Rs.325 and departure time was 8.45 PM. We were the first ppl to board the bus. It was a brand new bus which was inaugurated two days before. Even the seat covers were also there. It was built by Gemini Coach, Karur.

The bus started moving out of its bay by 9.00 PM, clear delay of 15 min. We had 36 passengers when we moved out of CMBT. The driver was an old guy and he struggled a lot to use the new gear arrangement and took a 5-10 min to get the bus out of the bay. Normal traffic was there in CMBT area and we were out of CMBT by 9.20 PM. We got few people boarded from Tambaram. Now the bus had 42 people. Just one seat left and we got it filled in Perungalathur. Out of 43 seats, 15 were reserved. From Tambaram we started by 10.15 and reached Madurai by 5.45. It took 7 hrs 30 minutes to reach madurai from Tambaram. Conductor+Driver guy did a good job and he has driven the bus well. Poor old guy struggled a lot. Overall it was good experience with SETC this time.

[SujineRaj]

Originally Posted by TKMCE

In Wilson Garden, while they dont give you the bus no individually, just outside the seating area, there is a A4 sheet stuck on the wall with a list of all departures for that day with the bus no written against each. I was there a few months ago.

Thank you for this information, I was not aware of this, but i wonder why the office guys cant point the passengers to this information when asked.

Originally Posted by Mister_M

Hello SujineRaj,

May be because of extreme rush in each of such occasion - they had things out of control. During such peak-season times, they tend to use most of their repaired / back-up buses from their garage into service with many additional trips to en cash the crowd. Point to be noted is that these buses tend to break frequently & in the event of break-downs, they had NO spare buses for emergencies.

Yeah this is definitely the case when you are travelling in peak holiday season. One of my friends travelled in KPN from Bangalore to Chennai in the Sleeperbus last month and he had the same story to tell. Very badly maintained bus with a very uncomfortable ride. I thought it is a one off case and even their spare buses are well maintained but I guess I was wrong all this while.

[Rehaan]

DueLLer's story of an experience of losing (and recovering) the bag he left on a Neeta Volvo.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street...ost-found.html

Originally Posted by DueLLeR

...
Come Vashi, I excitedly proclaimed "Excuse me!" to wake the slumbering gentleman, as politely as possible. Got off the B9R with the happiness of being home and longing a good time tonight. Sat in a rick and about 500 meters before home, horror struck!

My other bag was missing!

cya
R

[TKMCE]

A few of my releatives need to travel from Kochi to Chennai shortly and need some suggestions as it is a long time since I have been in the city last.

1 My destination is Thoraipakkam /Jain College area in the OMR . I understand (please correct if wrong) there are two routes the private buses take from Kerala, one via Pondicherry/ECR and the second via Ulundurupet, Tamabaram . Which route is the most convenient for getting down at my final destination and which are the nearest alighting points for the two routes - the ECR and the Tambaram route? The people travelling is a family and are first time travellers on this route and very irregular bus travellers, so a friendly and helpful bus crew would be ideal as the last thing they want is to end up at the last stop, long after the place where they are supposed to get down have passed by!

2 Which are the best options among the operators for an early arrival?? Ideally the bus should reach around 7 AM an not later. I am looking at Volvo options only. There are very few reviews here on the Chennai Kochi route.

3 For one of our group, the jouney orignates in Bangalore and not Kochi. For Bangalore- Chennai, to get down at Thoraipakkam, whch is the nearest alighting point???

Any feedback will be appreciated.

[coolclouds]

Originally Posted by TKMCE

2 Which are the best options among the operators for an early arrival?? Ideally the bus should reach around 7 AM an not later. I am looking at Volvo options only. There are very few reviews here on the Chennai Kochi route.

Please check SRM Thiruvalla - Chennai B9R service, 6pm Vyttila. This service is known for early arrival but please reconfirm the arrival timing as some buses avoid Krishnagiri route these days.

Pondy route should be the slowest one.

[silversteed]

Originally Posted by TKMCE

1 My destination is Thoraipakkam /Jain College area in the OMR . I understand (please correct if wrong) there are two routes the private buses take from Kerala, one via Pondicherry/ECR and the second via Ulundurupet, Tamabaram .

Pondy route would take longer, but the Pondy-ECR route is IMO a better option for them. They can get down at Thiruvanmiyur bus depot (along ECR) and get an MTC bus (route T51) to Thoraipakkam. Takes about 15min or less, early during the day. T51 (Thiruvanmiyur-Tambaram).

If they were to take the Ulundurpet-Tambaram route, it's better to get down at Koyambedu, and take MTC route no 570 (CMBT-Kelambakkam). It's serviced by Volvo buses.

Originally Posted by TKMCE

3 For one of our group, the jouney orignates in Bangalore and not Kochi. For Bangalore- Chennai, to get down at Thoraipakkam, whch is the nearest alighting point???

Take the Roadlink India volvo from Bangalore to Chennai, get down at Adayar. Take route no 568 from Adayar, get down at Thoraipakkam.

Actually, most of the buses go to Koyambedu. This one person can also take 570 from CMBT to Thoraipakkam. The only problem with Roadlink is that they'll reach Koyambedu before 4 o'clock in the morning.

[narayan]

Guys, which ones are the recommended operators in the Bangalore Chennai route ? is SRM good ?