The BEST (Marathi

Marathi language

Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...

: बृहन्मुंबई विद्युतपुरवठा आणि परिवहन उपक्रम / बेस्ट brahanmumbaī vidyutapuravaThā āŇi parivahan upakram / bēsţ)) is Mumbai

Mumbai

Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

's public transport

Public transport

Public transport is a shared passenger transportation service which is available for use by the general public, as distinct from modes such as taxicab, car pooling or hired buses which are not shared by strangers without private arrangement.Public transport modes include buses, trolleybuses, trams...

 service and electricity

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

 provider.

Established in 1873, the BEST operates one of India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

's largest fleets of buses

BEST Bus

The transportation wing of Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking operates a large number of bus lines in the Mumbai metropolitan area. These buses are called BEST or B.E ST bus . BEST bus serves the entire Mumbai City. It also has operations outside city limits into neighboring...

.
Originally setup as a tram

Tram

A tram is a passenger rail vehicle which runs on tracks along public urban streets and also sometimes on separate rights of way. It may also run between cities and/or towns , and/or partially grade separated even in the cities...

way company: Bombay Electric Supply & Tramways Company, the BEST set up a captive thermal power station at Wadi bunder, Bombay in November 1905 to generate electricity for its trams. That positioned it to also supply electricity to the city of Bombay.

From 1926 the BEST started operating motor buses.

In 1947, a week prior to India gaining independence, the BEST became an Undertaking of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai.