Metro Bus may resume soon in twin cities

Senior citizens, children won’t be allowed, distance seating

RAWALPINDI:

Closed for over 100-days, the government is mulling resuming operations of the Metro Bus Service between the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. However, the operations may resume as soon as next week, but only under the standard operating procedures (SOPs) which will be modified to adapt for the service, The Express Tribune learnt on Sunday.

Officials of the Metro Bus Authority (MBA) said that the service is used by millions regularly to commute between Rawalpindi and the federal capital of Islamabad. The suspension of the service due to the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic had caused immense problems to these commuters, many of which work in government offices which have remained open even during the lockdown. The prolonged closure of the service, officials said, had also caused the MBA to suffer a loss of Rs360 million.

But now, sources told The Express Tribune, the government is mulling whether to reopen the service. The Punjab government and the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration has already completed discussions on all foreseeable issues in reopening the service.

In this regard, a specific set of SOPs has been drafted which passengers will be bound to follow from the moment they step into a metro bus station till they exit it. Moreover, circulars inscribed with all precautionary guidelines will be posted prominently at multiple spots in all terminals.

In the first phase of the SOPs, all seats installed at the stations of the metro bus for waiting will be removed to prevent people from gathering. Another precautionary measure will be that the entry of people over 60-year-of-age and kids will be banned. Moreover, only passengers who wear a face mask will be provided with a ticket.

Before they board a bus, staff will screen passengers, checking them for their body temperature using a thermal gun.

Further, passengers will be sanitised before getting on the bus and after getting down from it. To ensure social distancing on a bus, only one passenger will be allowed to sit on a seat normally designated for two people.

The MBA has divided all metro stations into two types, sources said. Some stations, they explained, will be designated for people to board the bus, while others will be reserved for passengers disembarking from the bus.

By dedicating terminals for embarking and disembarking and both gates will be used for the purpose, sources said that they still expect the time people will have to wait at the terminal to increase.

To mitigate this, officials said that the MBA is mulling a proposal to increase the number of buses which will ply the dedicated tracks to ease the passenger load, particularly during the peak morning and evening hours.

The metro bus staff will be responsible for ensuring social distancing protocols at the terminals. In this regard, additional staff will be deployed at every station to ensure the directives are implemented. Sources said that the MBA staff has been given the requisite training for this purpose.

Sources hoped that the bus service will return to the tracks from next week.

Gathering dust

The metro bus service between the twin cities had been suspended on March 25 as the government imposed a lockdown to prevent Covid-19 from spreading.

The buses and terminals have been gathering dust ever since.

The tyres of the 73 buses, parked at two locations in the federal capital, have deflated while the bodies of some of the buses were reportedly starting to rust after being parked in open-air parking lots and exposed to the elements.

The situation at the metro bus terminals is not much better with many full of dust and in a dilapidated state - with their roof leaking - due to lack of maintenance during the pandemic.

The bus track has also worn-out. The biggest issue, however, was the pending salaries for MBA staff including drivers, conductors and other employees. If the service remains suspended for another two weeks, the company may be compelled to let some employees go, an MBA official said.

Despite having a large number of buses, only 30-40 of these operate on any given day and the remaining are kept in reserve. They help ferry some 100,000 passengers between the twin cities.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 6^th, 2020.