Peshawar BRT: K-P govt gives away 100,000 cards free of charge

TransPeshawar issues 0.24m Zu cards

PESHAWAR:

As soon as Prime Minister Imran Khan inaugurated the much-awaited Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Project in the city, commuters thronged bus stations to purchase the Zu cards to avail the newly-inaugurated transportation facility.

The construction work of the multi-billion project began in 2017 by then Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) provincial government, but it faced immense criticism from the public and opposition parties after being hit with perpetual delays.

Finally, the project was inaugurated on August 13 after which Zu buses started functioning and stations got overcrowded. People not only show eagerness to use the facility but also flocked to the stations after the government announced to give away 100,000 Zu cards free of charge on a first-come, first-served basis.

According to sources, people claimed free cards within five days which suggests that they had been anxiously waiting for the transportation facility to commence.

Officials from TransPeshawar, an authority responsible for running and maintaining the service, stated that they feared the system will develop issues since there were scores of people at almost every station and registration of 20,000 people per day was a huge task.

“Keeping in view the influx of people for registration, we feared the system would collapse but it worked smoothly,” one official said, adding that since the inauguration was on August 13, many people had come to the provincial capital from nearby villages which added to the total number of visitors at the station.

“Evident from CCTV camera footage, there was 500 times more rush at the stations, but the system worked without any problems. This shows that the system is robust and will never collapse on routine days,” a senior TransPEshawar official informed The Express Tribune.

Although data is still being maintained and the statistics will be shared with the government and the public at the end of the month, some 240,000 Zu cards have already been sold in nine days, with 15,000 to 20,000 cards being sold per day.

“The estimates are based on cards which were registered against people’s computerised national identity cards (CNICs), biometrics, and phone numbers. We are still collecting data for cards which were bought for one-time travelling purposes,” TransPeshawar’s Chief Executive Officer Fayaz Khan said.

At present, 60 buses have started operating from Chamkani to Karkhano during off-peak hours, while 80 buses are operating during peak hours.

Apart from the main route, link routes have also been established at Kohat Road, Charsadda Road and Hayatabad, however, they have not been made functional yet.

“The Hayatabad link route will be made functional within the next 15 days, while the Kohat and Charsadda roads will be connected and made functional within 45 to 50 days,” Khan said.

Shedding light on the unprecedented rush at the stations, another senior official from TransPeshawar, who chose not to be named, said that the reaction of the public took TransPeshawar employees by surprise.

“It was something unexpected and, honestly, it panicked us since we were not expecting this overwhelming response.”

Published in The Express Tribune, August 23^rd, 2020.