LTC Fails to Provide Better Transportation

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PUBLIC transport in the provincial metropolis will have to wait further for any addition of buses as funds for providing subsidy on buses have been withheld due to flood relief operations.

Lahore Transport Company has till now failed to bring any significant betterment or contribute to the depleting public transport system in the provincial metropolis and this current predicament has dampened any hopes of improvement in near future.

There are around 700 large size buses operating in Lahore. This fleet is not only insufficient but the buses are old and poorly maintained. Most of the times, these buses are off road for repairs. Recently one of the major players in the city, Niazi Transport Service took more than 50 busses off the road due to unbearable losses due to government’s unfriendly policies towards transport owners.

Only in Lahore, the maximum daily estimated trips of all modes of public transport, legal and illegal, are around 18.668 million trips/day. The current demand is almost 8 million per year in addition to the aforementioned demand which is expected to rise to more than 11 million by the year 2021. The current demand is highest for the public transport constituting 50 per cent of the total demand.

An LTC spokesperson said that the primary reason for the delay in acquisition of busses was not the incompetence of LTC but because the government was having trouble providing the one billion rupees allocated in the budget for the subsidy on procurement of new busses.

Apart from the cosmetic therapy of the Ferozepur Road, LTC has little to its credit as its ‘enforcement staff’ too has not been able to uproot the illegal public transport, which has not only messed up the city traffic flow but these motorcycle rickshaws and vans have also been a consistent pain in the neck for public transport owners.

On the other hand, public transport is being provided by overcrowded, poorly managed and rashly driven mini-buses and vans. There is a need to replace this kind of informal and dangerous transport service with properly organised, safe, efficient and affordable bus transport service.

Due to several reasons, principal among them is the non-existence of a proper mechanism for bus-financing and bus service monitoring. The number of buses has been decreasing over the years and the quality of service provided is also getting poorer day by day. In the past, private sector initiatives for inducting new city buses were dampened due to absence of proper environment and government support in the form of concessions/incentives to the bus operators, sponsors and financiers.

The setting up of LTC was intended as a remedy for this situation and raise comfort level of private sector to come forward and become partners with LTC. however, over the past two years of its establishment, LTC officials who are being paid millions of rupees has not been able to broker a single major deal with any investor.

At the moment, the Bus transport service in Lahore district is planned over 53 routes, which are based on 2006 survey of passengers, published in Punjab Gazette 2006. Out of these 53 routes, only 30 are operational.

The non-operational bus routes are being serviced by non-permitted vans. coasters, wagons, rickshaws and motorcycle rickshaws. The low cost of these informal and poorly maintained service vehicles has literally driven out the bus service from these routes. Despite repeated pleas by the transport owners for the reclaiming of all these routes, the government and LTC have not been able to provide any solution to the issue and have backtracked from disbanding motorcycle rickshaws from the roads.

One of the major reasons behind the non-implementation of this ban is the fact that these illegal passenger service vehicles and their owners require to be adjusted to alternate roads. Although, the government has allocated money for alternate measures for the illegal transport in this year’s budget yet any concrete measure are yet to be taken to utilise this amount.

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