“I work in a bus company,” said the young software engineer when I asked him where he worked.
“What is a bus company?” I asked in a puzzled tone. I had never heard that term before.

Well, it turns out that in Bangalore if you work for any of the big IT companies like Infosys, Wipro, TCS,  or MindTree (there are quite a few of them) they  are labelled as “bus companies.” And, that is precisely what this young software engineer from Bangalore was referring to.

And the reason they are called bus companies is that these IT companies have a fleet of buses that ferry their employees back and forth from various parts of Bangalore. Lack of good public transportation  combined with constant traffic jams have made traveling  around in Bangalore a pretty gnarly affair. Many IT companies have figured out (done the math more like it) that it is cost-effective to provide transporation for its employees, who live in different parts of Bangalore.  (Think of it like the free lunch perks or the subsidized food that many Silicon Valley companies offer.) The next time you are in Bangalore look around and you will be sure to clap your eyes on these buses.

It is interesting that IT companies provide buses, while call center companies provide cars for their employees. If you have ever been to Bangalore you might have noticed these call center cars right away. You cannot miss them since they the cars are almost always white in color and typically tend to be Tata Indicas or Toyota Qualis or Mahedra’s Sumo.  Let us not forget the rash drivers who drive these cars. There is a whole set of reasons on why call center companies maintain a fleet of private cars to ferry their workers back and forth from home. But that is the subject of whole different post.

What do bus companies have to do with Silicon Valley? Well, it seems that many Silicon Valley companies due to a combination of reasons have figured out that it far more economical and enviormentally the right thing to do by providing bus service for their employees. You might have seen the big black colored buses in various freeways around the Bay area. Apparently, Yahoo started its bus service about 3 years ago and since then Google, eBay and others have started a shuttle service for their employees.

I guess if the young software engineer from Bangalore came to work for one of these Silicon Valley companies he is likely to say that he works for a bus company.