PMPML Depot Performance

PMPML's 17 depots are not a single system — they divide into three structural clusters, each optimized for different routes and riders. Reading the numbers without knowing which cluster a depot belongs to leads to wrong conclusions: the most dramatic example is a depot showing 0% fleet utilization that is actually putting 46 buses on the road every day, because those buses happen to be hired rather than PMPML-owned. Each depot serves a different catchment area with different route profiles, fleet mixes, and rider demographics — and those structural differences explain most of what looks like performance variation.

This page compares depots against each other. For month-by-month data on a single depot, see Depotwise Reports.

The Depot Map

PMPML Depots — Bubble Size = Average Fleet Size

The Efficiency Spectrum

How depots compare on the metrics that matter most: fleet utilization, earning per kilometer, passengers per bus, and fleet size. Small depots sometimes outperform large ones on efficiency — and vice versa.

Utilization % caveat: Depots running exclusively hired vehicles (Balewadi, Maan, Wagholi, Charholi) record 0% utilization — not because they're inactive, but because the formula counts only PMPML-owned and PPP buses in the numerator. A depot with 46 hired buses on the road daily still shows 0%. Read the Reading the System section before drawing conclusions from this column.

No Results

Utilization measures the share of a depot's total fleet that is actually running scheduled routes on any given day. Depots with older fleets or more maintenance backlogs show lower utilization — buses sitting in workshops drag the percentage down. Compare fleet size with utilization: some smaller depots maintain tighter operations, while some large depots with big fleets still struggle to put their buses on the road.

Schedule Adherence

Each depot has a sanctioned schedule — the number of daily trips it is expected to operate. The gap between sanctioned and actually operated schedules reveals chronic under-delivery. A depot consistently falling short is either short on serviceable buses, short on crew, or both.

No Results

Depots at the bottom of the adherence ranking are chronically missing their scheduled trips. When a depot's adherence is below 80%, it means riders on those routes are regularly experiencing cancelled services — longer waits, crowded buses on surviving trips, and eventual mode shift to private vehicles. The schedule gap is a leading indicator of service deterioration.

Fleet Ownership

PMPML's fleet is not a single entity. Depots operate a mix of PMPML-owned buses, PPP (Public-Private Partnership) vehicles from private operators, and hired buses. The ownership split has direct implications for cost control, service quality, and operational flexibility.

No Results

Some depots run almost entirely on hired or PPP vehicles. This creates a dependency: when private operators pull back (contract disputes, fleet age-outs), these depots have no fallback. Depots with a high own-fleet share have more direct control over service reliability, but also bear the full maintenance burden. The ideal balance depends on route economics — high-revenue trunk routes justify owned fleet investment; low-ridership peripheral routes may be better served through flexible hire arrangements.

Revenue and Ridership

Not all passengers are equal in revenue terms. A depot with high ridership but low per-passenger revenue is carrying mostly pass holders (student passes, monthly commuter passes, senior citizen concessions). A depot with lower ridership but higher fare per head is serving more ticket-buying, longer-distance passengers.

No Results

The revenue-per-passenger gap across depots tells us about route mix and rider composition. Depots serving longer-distance intercity or suburban routes naturally earn more per passenger (distance-based fares). Depots in dense urban cores carry more passengers per bus but at lower per-trip fares — especially when pass holders dominate. A depot with high ridership but low fare realization is subsidizing mobility for pass-dependent commuters, which is socially valuable but financially challenging.

Trends Over Time

Select a depot to see its utilization and ridership trends over time. Seasonal patterns — monsoon dips, festive-season peaks, post-holiday recovery — vary by depot depending on their route mix and catchment area.

Swargate — Fleet Utilization Over Time

Swargate — Passengers per Bus per Day

Swargate — Revenue per Bus per Day

Swargate — KMs per Bus per Day

No Results

Monthly patterns typically show: monsoon months (June-September) see dips in ridership and utilization as flooding and waterlogging disrupt services; festive months (October-November around Diwali/Dussehra) sometimes show peaks from increased travel; and the January-March quarter tends to be the most stable operational period. However, these patterns vary significantly by depot — a depot serving industrial areas may see different seasonality than one near educational institutions.

Reading the System

The six measures above divide PMPML's depots into three structural clusters — not by geography, but by the type of fleet they run.

Owned-fleet inner-ring depots (Shewalwadi, N.T.Wadi, Nigadi, Bhosari) consistently lead on utilization (75–79%) and schedule adherence. Bhosari (industrial northeast, MIDC area) tops both earning per km (₹37.65) and passengers per bus (778/day) — long worker-commute routes with high ridership generate strong fare revenue. Shewalwadi leads schedule adherence at 84%, running the most of its sanctioned trips on any given day.

Hired-fleet peripheral depots (Balewadi, Baner, Wagholi, Maan, Charholi) appear broken on utilization and adherence — but this is a metric artifact. The utilization formula counts only PMPML-owned and PPP buses in the numerator; a depot running 100% hired vehicles records 0% utilization despite putting 46 buses on the road daily. The same logic applies to schedule adherence. Strip out the metric noise and these depots perform: Balewadi (northwest highway corridor) leads passengers per bus at 845/day; Maan (far-east outskirts) earns the highest revenue per bus in the system at ₹8,897/day on long peripheral routes. The real risk is contractual, not operational — a single dispute can pull every bus overnight.

Dense-urban terminals (Swargate, Pimpri, Kothrud) anchor the bottom of revenue metrics. Swargate (old Pune city terminus) earns ₹4,566 per bus per day — less than half Maan's figure — and ₹8.54 per passenger, the lowest fare realization in the system. These depots are not failing; they serve short-hop, monthly-pass-heavy routes in areas where riders have no private-vehicle alternative. The low numbers measure social function, not operational failure.

Data Queries

SQL queries powering the visualizations above. Evidence.dev processes these at build time — position in the file does not affect rendering.