BRT set to resume on October 25
The manufacturer of the vehicles plying in the dedicated corridors of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project in the provincial capital has managed to trace and fix the fault which had caused at least five buses of the service to catch fire with passengers inside and prompted a six-week-long closure.
The service is now set to resume from October 25.
This was disclosed on Wednesday by a spokesperson for TransPeshawar - the company responsible for the operation and maintenance of the new bus service in Peshawar.
The official said that after nearly a month, a 20-member team of engineers sent by the manufacturers of the bus had submitted a report with their findings about the fault which had been causing the spontaneous fires in the new buses.
The inspection team’s report, he said, determined the fault to be an unusual flow of ripple current which affected the performance of the capacitors installed, leading to a short circuit and subsequent fires.
To fix this issue, he said that the technical experts were updating and replacing the electrical controllers for the capacitors. Moreover, they will improve the high voltage wiring installed in the buses and the temperature controlling system - thermostats - of the buses.
The TransPeshawar spokesperson reiterated that all BRT buses are in warranty, adding that the batteries and electric motors are covered for a period of 12 years or 1.2 million kilometres.
The proposed solutions, he added, were sustainable and long-lasting while the cost of repairs, replacements, and upgrades are all being borne by the manufacturer.
He added that the service had been suspended on the recommendation of the manufacturers to help them inspect all buses thoroughly to determine and fix the fault without putting passengers in danger.
Last week, Adviser to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) chief minister on Information Kamran Bangash had said that the technical malfunctions in Peshawar BRT have been identified and that the team of engineers is working on a solution.
The bus service had been inaugurated by Prime Minister Imran Khan on August 13, nearly three years after the project was launched and had apparently run into delays and cost overruns. However, just weeks after its highly-anticipated inauguration, the service had to be shut down after repeated incidents of fires spontaneously sparking in the buses.
The problem had initially been traced to the battery bay of the buses, which work on a hybrid of electrical and fossil fuel power mechanism.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 15th, 2020.