LAHORE, May 6: Five more transport companies will run 280 buses on various routes in the provincial metropolis from next month. Under an agreement with the transport department, the Albraq transport company will run 80 buses
, New Lahore Motors 40, Prance 40 and Makkas 80 buses.
A contract with Skyways is under process for 40 buses. Besides, the New Khan will also run another 120 buses. The new buses will ply on routes 9, 33, 77, 65, 17 and 23.
Six companies - New Khan, Daewoo, Premier, Baloch, Monolite and Chatha Brothers - are currently operating in the city with 606 buses on 26 urban routes out of a total of 56.
Most companies have not only brought less than the required number of buses to the franchised routes but also run successive buses after long intervals to ensure maximum capacity utilization.
Despite passengers' complaint about shortage of buses on all the franchised routes, three of the six franchisees have failed to bring the agreed number of buses to the routes allotted to them.
Daewoo has inducted only 70 air-conditioned buses into service against a commitment to bring 300. The company justifies the delay on grounds that the government has delayed reimbursement of the cost of Lahore-Islamabad Motorway construction to it. The company is however making arrangements for assembly of its own buses for honouring the agreement.
Monolite has brought only 12 double-deckers and 40 ordinary buses on routes against its plan to induct 125 buses. It is not running the required number of buses on two routes allotted to it so far.
The Baloch Transport has been able to bring 38 buses to the routes allotted to it against an induction plan of 80. It also blames bus manufacturers for the delay in implementation of the induction plan.
The government has decided to replace wagons with franchised buses offering incentives in the form of subsidized bank loans and monopoly on routes in the wake of complaints of rash driving and overloading by wagon operators.
However, the replacement virtually brought no relief to commuters. Those complaining of being stuffed in wagons are now forced to travel in crowded buses on the franchised routes because of misuse of monopoly by most of the transport companies.
The elimination of wagons has solved the problem of rash driving to some extent on the franchised routes but the passengers are seen waiting for buses on almost all the stops during all hours of the day because the companies are not plying the required number of buses.
Only a few passengers were seen on stops when wagons were in operation as individual operators increased the frequency of wagon operations in accordance with the increase in number of passengers.
On the other hand, franchisees feel no compulsion to increase the frequency of buses because they know that the passengers have no alternative but to wait for their buses.
When contacted, provincial transport secretary Agha Nadeem said that another 1,000 franchised buses would be run on various routes in a couple of months to address the grievances of commuters. He said the department was not considering to allow wagons to ply on the franchised bus routes to lessen the rush on bus stops.
