Bangalore BMTC Volvo City Buses- Timetable, route, airport transfer

This post tells you all you wanted to know about BMTC Volvo city buses.

Quick Notes: To
For route numbers and timing details click here [Post on Chennai Volvo City bus here]

New: Try this quick photo Quiz on BMTC Volvo

When I showed the photos of these city buses to some of friends in Hyderabad who had not seen these buses, their initial reaction was something like “is it in India?” “It is a city bus – a??” “In Bangalore all city buses are like this??!!!”

Indeed, the comfort looks and performance a Volvo offers is not met by any of its competitors in the luxury buses segment. After huge success of Volvo B7R inter-city coaches Volvo launched B7RLE transit buses in late 2005 and Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) was one of the pioneers to use them.

The Vehicle body design is that of Volvo 8700 which is its European counter part. The 7 liter rear engine is probably too much for Bangalore’s roads and I feel Volvo could have considered B6R instead of B7R for intra-city buses (Both to restrict over speeding and increase fuel economy). The 38 seated coach has 50% of its seats at extremely low level and rest at an elevated position. The AC is nice and melodious radio complements the ambiance.

The driver has a rear view LCD screen with live feed from a camera. I believe this is an additional equipment incorporated by BMTC as this is not a standard fitment with B7RLE. The console has an LED screen which shows both system generated messages as well as messages relayed by control tower. A mike and an Ahuja audio system are obviously added additionally.


English speaking conductors are employed for these buses.

The ride quality is good. The price is obviously very high. (Minimum fare is Rs 15; say for Majestic to Corporation that’s 3-4 times non-Volvo buses). People have lots of money circulating in their hands these days and don’t mind shelling out in the name of luxury and comfort. BMTC is cashing on that very well.


BMTC’s full window advertising on some Volvo buses (See image) is fully transparent from inside.

Timings, Availability and Time Table

You can find the time table for all the Ordinary and REDboard buses here in the link below.:

(shared by a reader)

Update: Route 356C Timings (from KBS and Electronic City) here (Thanks VKT for the info).

BMTC Website has route numbers, number of trips and departure timings. There is also a SMS based locater service. Because of Bangalore’s traffic and other constraints it is probably difficult to give a precise time table as to this bus will be at this point at this hour this minute. You can use SMS based locater service (YI: Yelli iddira???) to predict how much more time a given bus may take to reach your boarding point. Despite the odds they are operating with reasonable reliability. Regular commuters will have a better idea on this.

You can avail BMTC’s elli iddeera (Where are you?) SMS based service to know the current position of various buses. To use this service you should know the route numbers and send an SMS to 9945634666 with YI routeNo direction. Route Numbers: V356C for Majestic (KBS) to Electronic City, V335E for KBS to Kadugudi, ITPL, V402B for KBS-Yelahanka,V500L for Banashankari to ITPL, V500K from Vijayanagara to ITPL, V2 for Majestic to J P Nagar etc. Direction can be U or D, for UP (towards city(KBS)) and DOWN (from city to far). Sample: SMSing YI V402B U to 9945634666 should return you location of Volvo that started from Yelahanka and heading towards Majestic Bus Terminus. Some more details here.

Related links: 2 Other blog posts on Volvo experience can be found [here] and [here] | My other post on Volvo Buses | My Report on Volvo India plant in Hoskote| 

New: Try this quick photo Quiz on BMTC Volvo

Also read: Another hot review: Hyderabad Bangalore by Bus-Comparison of various operators
Read Why BMTC is performing better than its counterparts in TN and AP in this post

Update: KSTRC and BMTC have increased fares recently to collect money to increase infrastructure facilities and introduce more buses. Expect to see more volvos around. Happy riding...

Update: Starting 17th September 07, Chennai City will also have Volvo City buses. More information in this post.

Feb 2012 Update: Internet services inside Airport bound Vayu Vajra Buses

Above Photo sourced from internet

Check this: Video coach Local buses in coastal Karnataka |