Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service (AMTS) offered women free bus travel across its network on the occasion of Bhai Beej, including services connecting the city with Sanand and Bavla, according to a report by Sandesh. The waiver was available throughout the day and was intended to help women travelling to meet their brothers and families during the festival.
The initiative covered AMTS buses operating in different parts of Ahmedabad as well as routes extending towards Sanand and Bavla. Sandesh reported that thousands of women used the facility to travel without paying a fare. The report described increased passenger movement from the early morning at bus stops and terminals in several parts of the city.
Bhai Beej is a major travel occasion for families, with women commonly visiting their brothers’ homes for the festival. By removing the bus fare for the day, AMTS made its public transport services available to women without a ticket charge on the covered routes. The supplied report does not specify the value of the fare waiver, the total number of passengers, or the cost to the transport service.
The free-travel facility was not limited to Ahmedabad’s internal routes. AMTS buses serving Sanand and Bavla also carried women without charge, linking the municipal transport network with industrial and rural areas connected to the city. The report said women used the services to travel to their brothers’ homes and participate in family celebrations.
The transport authority also arranged service management on important routes in response to the expected increase in festival-day passenger traffic. According to Sandesh, officials maintained arrangements at key routes so that women could reach their destinations more easily despite the higher demand. No detailed information was provided about additional buses, revised frequencies, passenger counts, or specific route-level measures.
The initiative illustrates the role of city bus systems during festival periods, when everyday travel patterns change and demand can rise sharply at terminals and along routes connecting urban neighbourhoods with nearby settlements. In this case, the fare waiver operated as a short-term public transport measure for women travelling within Ahmedabad and to Sanand and Bavla.
The report did not state whether AMTS plans to repeat the concession during future festivals or whether the service recorded a formal increase in ridership. It also did not provide a statement on how the free travel was administered, including whether passengers needed to show identification or whether conductors followed any special ticketing procedure. The available information is limited to the Bhai Beej day’s free-travel arrangement and the reported response from passengers.
