Trial run: Metro buses to start training run soon

Training run from Gajju Matta to Kalma Chowk could be delayed by construction.

LAHORE:

The training run of the Metro Bus Service (MBS) drivers on the Gajju Matta to Kalma Chowk section of the MBS route is likely to start soon.

Six driver trainers from the Turkish company Platform have arrived in Pakistan and have been scheduled to start trainING MBS drivers within 10 days.

A Metro Bus Service Authority (MBSA) official Uzair Shah said Traffic Engineering and Planning Authority (TEPA) will provide a u-turn on Kalma Chowk within 10-days to start training the MBS drivers. He said the training would be conducted by the firms, Platform and Volvo. The drivers would be taught how to drive the buses, how to dock at a platform and how to maintain speed and distance, Shah added.

“Six driver trainers have arrived in Pakistan to train newly-recruited drivers on the MBS route,” a senior Turkish official in Platform said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.



He said some drivers for MBS had been hired while others were in the process for hiring.

The official said he expected the training to start in around ten days. He added that the plan was to run five to six buses during the training phase.

“The forty-five buses that reached Karachi will be transported to Lahore in the next 10 days,” he said.

Kalma Chowk project director Khalid Alvi said that they had been given a deadline by the MBS project director to clear the MBS route till December 20. He said they would be able to clear it, if not by December 20, then in around 24 hours or so after the deadline ends. He said the MBS buses would turn before the Kalma Chowk underpass area.



However, another MBSA official speaking on anonymity said neither of the under-construction Model Town Morr nor Kalma Chowk will be ready for any such training to start in the next 10-days. He said the training programme would hopefully start within four weeks.

He said the government was giving too short a deadline to begin the training-run for the buses. “It would be almost impossible to meet the December 20 deadline,” he said.

A TEPA official speaking on condition of anonymity said Kalma Chowk was the only bottleneck preventing buses travelling from Gajju Matta. He said all 10 bus stations were almost complete and the escalators were almost built too.

The official said the Kalma Chowk construction would take another 20 days.

No asphalt had been laid on the intersections as yet, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20^th, 2012.