LAHORE, March 17: The Lahore Transport Company has been given the go-ahead to launch Electronic Ticketing System (E-ticketing) for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Project and the entire urban bus transport in the provincial metropolis in order to ensure provision of a trouble-free fare system to the people, it is learnt.

Official told Dawn on Saturday that the LTC management had formally started working on the E-ticketing by involving the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) to complete the project that would end the outdated system of charging fare through cash handling.

“In a recent meeting of the LTC Board of Directors (BoD) we have formally approved the project and entrusted the task to the PITB management. The technology board will first call tenders from the interested parties/investors to complete the project.

After completion of the project, the PITB will be responsible to hand it over to LTC to operate it under its regulations,” LTC Chairman Khwaja Ahmad Hassan told Dawn.

Talking about salient features of the project, he said under the E-ticketing system the travellers would buy pre-paid travelling cards, comprising duration of a day, week or a month from the open market and would use these in the automated/computerised machines to be installed in all buses currently plying on various city routes and those that would ply on dedicated road lanes under the BRT project in future.

He said the Bank of Punjab would be responsible to repay the cost of travelling cards to bus operators through LTC under the new system. He said the LTC would also have a control room to monitor the entire bus operation including the e-ticketing system.

Talking about involvement of all major stakeholders including bus operators, Mr Hassan said the LTC had also held a meeting two days back with the local bus transporters and briefed them about launch of the project. “All the transporters present in the meeting appreciated this decision and offered their utmost cooperation to make the plan a success.”

He said at present there were over 400 buses including 250 new CNG vehicles plying on various city routes. “Besides this 100 new buses have already arrived in Lahore from China and currently parked at NLC depot. Soon these buses will be part of the existing fleet. We will receive 100 more buses from China by next month and another 250 by the mid of the year or so.”

He said the LTC had planned to establish six vehicle fitness/testing centres at various locations of the city in order to ensure routine maintenance of the buses. He said the LTC would also float tenders for establishing these centres on build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis. “A Swedish company has also shown its interest in establishing these centres. But it will have to go through the bidding process if it seriously wants to do so,” the LTC chairman said.

He said after establishing the centres, the LTC would close the offices of motor vehicle examiners (MVEs) formerly being run by the transport department in Lahore in the past.

He said the new centres would check all sorts of public transport and issue them fitness certificates after having a thorough examination.