Cabs and auto-rickshaws in Bangalore are notorious for swindling huge sums of money by pretending that they know nothing about the city where in reality they know every nook and corner. They do this so that they can take you all over the place and on top of that bill you exorbitant amounts. And if you are a westerner then just don't go anywhere near them unless you know the exact route to take!

>The public transportation was really bad and covered only certain parts of the city.

This is definitely not the case as the public transport cover just about every part of the city, even where autos hesitate to take. It's just that you need at least a month to figure out the routes, buses, transits etc., which gives the perception of non-existent public transport. I lived in Bangalore for 7 years before I started using public transport and despite being a local, Kannada being my mother tongue, it took me about a month to get it right.

From my personal limited experience of visiting various metros in India I'm fairly confident that Bangalore has the largest public bus transportation in India.

>The indications in the street were hard to find and see.

That's probably because there aren't any :). There are very few on arterial roads but even they aren't reliable as the one-way traffic rules change very so often!