Peshawar BRT’s Zu service opens on three feeder routes

The provincial government has decided to extend the Zu Bus Service on three feeder routes of the Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in the Hayatabad area of the city.

The service was expanded as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Chief Minister Mahmood Khan formally launched the Zu Bus Service at a ceremony on Monday.

The first of these feeder routes start from the Mall of Hayatabad and goes up to phase-VI via Basharat market. The second feeder route starts from Karkhano Market and goes up to the phase-VII terminal after passing through the Industrial Estate. Similarly, the third feeder route commences from the Mall of Hayatabad and ends at Haji Camp via Bagh-e-Naran.

Initially, 25 Zu Buses will ply on these routes to transport passengers from various points of Hayatabad to the main corridor of BRT. They will operate from 6am to 10pm.

The chief minister said that the number of buses and feeder routes to the BRT will be increased to facilitate residents of the provincial capital.

Meanwhile, over 20 buses have been inducted in the BRT fleet, raising its total to 90 buses. The decision to add buses to the main BRT corridor was taken because of the large influx of passengers.

Special Assistant to the K-P Chief Minister for Information and Local Government Kamran Bangash, in a briefing to the media on Sunday, had termed reports about the BRT on social media as fabricated and part of malicious propaganda against the project by opposition parties. The rush at BRT stations proved that the public preferred to travel in bus service, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25^th, 2020.