Public transport: Chief minister sets Nov 20 deadline for bus route

Metro Bus Service to be free during first four weeks of testing.

LAHORE:

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has set a deadline of November 20 for the completion of major infrastructure for the Metro Bus Service, including an eight-kilometre elevated track and a bus depot, though the contractors say it will likely take a few weeks longer.

Once the major work is complete, test runs of the bus service will be conducted for around a month, during which time anyone can ride the buses for free. Officials working on the project said they were hopeful that the first bus would run by December. Forty five articulated buses for the MBS are due to arrive in Karachi from Sweden on November 26, and in Lahore around a week later.

There are seven principal contractors for the MBS – the National Logistics Cell, MAAK sons, Habib Construction Services, ZKB, IKAN and SKB/Albarak (a joint venture by the two companies.

“We are utilising all our resources. Some 5,000 people are working on the MBS right now,” an official at one of the companies said. “They are working at full speed. Even if they continue at this pace, it will be another 15 to 20 days (after Nov 15) before the work is finished.”

Officials said that during his tour of the worksite on Sunday, the chief minister initially proposed a deadline of November 15. The contractors protested, but he only gave them five more days.

The cost of the building the 27.3km MBS, running from Gajju Mata to Shahdara Chowk, mainly along Ferozepur Road, has surged to around Rs31 billion. It includes an eight-km bus-only elevated track from New Muslim Town to Bhati Chowk. Officials said that the project may later be extended in both directions so the bus runs from Kahna to Shahdara Railway Station, a distance of some 32km.

Officials said that some plans for the MBS had been postponed. A bridge for the MBS on over the Ravi had been proposed earlier, but it won’t be built before the service becomes operational. The National Engineering Services of Pakistan (Nespak) is currently making terms of reference for the project.

Officials said there was some concern that the MBS articulated buses would be held up at the Old Ravi Bridge alongside normal traffic. They said that they were considering the possibility of running some MBS buses on shortened routes terminating at Bhati.

Ansar Butt, a deputy director at the Traffic Engineering and Transport Planning Agency (Tepa) who is working on the MBS project, said that they were working around the clock to try and meet the chief minister’s deadline. He said that some 1,200 workers were engaged in the 3.5km stretch of the project he was responsible for.

Butt said that non-Muslim staff would continue to work on the project during the Eid holidays, doing small works like compaction and sanitation. The Muslim labourers would get three days off.

He said that a bus depot was being built at Nishter, a u-turn at Hadiara and figure-8 turns at MAO College and Bhati Gate. He said that a depot was to be built at Shahdara, but that idea had been postponed for now. He said that the figue-8 turn at MAO College would be useful if the government went ahead with plans to build MBS routes on Multan Road and Canal Bank Road. He said that a German contractor would soon start installing escalators for some MBS terminals.

Lahore Transport Company General Manager Uzair Shah said that once the contractors finish the major infrastructure, the buses would be sent on test runs and the e-ticketing systems, screen doors at terminals, escalators and generators would be tested. He said that for the first four weeks, anyone could ride the buses for free.

He said that a company had been contracted for cleaning, while another would be contracted for security. He said that a proposal to establish a security staff for the MBS had been dropped.

Shah said that work on the Intelligent Transport System project would begin soon. Monday is the deadline for submission of bids for the project tender. Under the ITS project, the junctions along the route of the MBS would be modernised to include smart traffic lights and surveillance cameras.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 15^th, 2012.