Metro buses all set to hit roads in Multan

Prime minister is expected to inaugurate the project soon

MULTAN: The work on the long-awaited Multan Metro Bus Project has been completed and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will inaugurate it soon. The project has been completed at a cost of Rs28 billion.

The Metro Bus will be a model transportation system. It will benefit people belonging to all walks of life including students, traders and labourers. This project will also help boost trade activities in the city.

Earlier, while highlighting details of the project, Metro Bus Project Chief Engineer Sabir Khan Sadozai said some new features had been added to the project to facilitate the commuters. He said the need for these features was felt in view of the differences in Multan’s climate compared to Lahore and Rawalpindi as well as the input received from commuters using metro bus services in the other two cities.



Sadozai said during the construction work, the project team encountered problems in placement of girders at some points along the route. He said revisions were made to the original plan for construction of the route at Mumtazabad.

He said additional features had been added to the project on the recommendation of a team of engineers. To protect commuters from the sun, glass panels sandwiched with thick foam and stuffed between steel layers had been used for the project.

He said the metro track would be 18.5 km long – six kilometres on ground and 12.5 km elevated. The elevated segment would start at the BZU and end at Kumharan Walla Chowk. There would be 21 terminals, seven on ground-level and 14 elevated.

Major intersections along the route are Chungi No6, Chungi No9, Fish Market, Daulat Gate, Chungi No14, BCG Chowk and Vehari Chowk. Initially, he said, Daewoo Pakistan would operate a fleet of 35 buses under an agreement with the provincial government.



He said the number of buses would be increased if needed. A depot constructed for the buses had enough room for parking of 100 buses, he said.

He said the provincial government would run shuttles on a feeder route to let commuters reach metro track from different parts of the city. Buses operating on several intra-city routes would be connected to the shuttles operating on the feeder route, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2017.