‘Empowering women’: LTC pursuing operators for a fourth pink bus

If an agreement is reached, the bus can be launched within two months.

LAHORE:

The Lahore Transport Company (LTC) is in talks with operators who are plying three women-only buses, known as pink buses, to press a fourth one into service in the city, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The three pink buses were launched in Lahore in January 2012 on the initiative of the LTC, a public company owned by the Punjab government that has been established to provide safe, affordable and efficient transport service for the general public in Lahore.

Three bus operators had introduced one pink bus each on three city routes in January 2012. The operators had reportedly faced financial problems because of lack of sufficient volume of passengers on all three routes. Consequently, two bus operators pulled the pink buses from the B-22 route (Niaz Beg via Canal Road to Jallo) and B-33 (Railway Station to Bagarian) in 2013. By March this year, the LTC managed to persuade the two bus operators, Ozpak and First Bus Service, to reintroduce the pink buses, bringing the number to women-only buses in Lahore to three again.

It has been learnt that the LTC wants to expand the pink bus service to facilitate women passengers in the city.

The operators have complained that the volume of passengers for the pink buses, each taking a round of the city thrice a day (at 7am, 12pm and 4pm), was not feasible. However, the LTC maintains that women passengers would start using the service in greater numbers once a proper network of pink buses was in place.

Subsidised

LTC officials told The Express Tribune on condition of anonymity that the bus operators were being given a subsidy to run the pink buses. They said the company was currently negotiating with Ozpak and Platform to introduce a fourth pink bus in the city. They said if an agreement was reached with either company the bus could be launched within two months. They said the most likely route for the bus would be B-22.

Lahore Transport Company Deputy General Manager Operation Faisal Naseer said the company was considering adding another bus to the three pink buses operating in the city. However, he said nothing had yet been finalised regarding when and where to launch a fourth pink bus. Asked about the possibility of introducing women-only public transport wagons in city, he said although wagons offered many advantages but the company was focused on trying to make the idea of women-only buses successful.

E-ticketing

The LTC has also invited proposals for e-ticketing for public transport in the city. The public-private partnership project, to be implemented on a build-operate-transfer basis, would replace receipts with a card system.

According to LTC officials, it would take around five years to fully introduce the e-ticketing system in the city.

Lahore Transport Company has asked the interested companies and firms to submit their proposal by July 14.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 4^th, 2014.