PTI spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry while talking to Business Recorder. He said that metro bus service come under the provincial government jurisdiction and after taking charge of the government affairs, Prime Minister-elect Imran Khan would be given detailed briefing on metro bus projects. Chaudhry said that currently huge subsidies are being provided to metro bus service which is a burden on the government exchequer. The government is extending around Rs 2 billion subsidies on Islamabad-Rawalpindi metro bus annually. Different options including increasing fares and running it on Bus Rapid Transit system (Peshawar-BRTS) model would be deliberated upon to make metro bus service self-sustainable, PTI spokesperson added.
The government would not give subsidy for the BRT project, as the model adopted to construct the BRT service is a 3rd generation model that is operating in China.
In comparison to Lahore, Islamabad and Multan metro service which are operating on a single route, Peshawar metro will operate on 8 different routes across the city with a fleet of 450 buses. It is estimated that Trans Peshawar will facilitate 4.5 million commuters. Currently around 50 metro buses between Rawalpindi and Islamabad are operated while the rest are parked at the depot due to less number of commuters. Around 100,000 passengers use metro bus daily against the target of more than 150,000 commuters per day. As a result, the provincial government did not bring more buses to the route.
Punjab Mass Transit Authority (PMA) officials revealed that about 100 percent increase in Islamabad-Rawalpindi metro bus is expected in coming months as at the current fare the service is not self-sustainable. The fare in the metro bus is Rs 20 per passenger which may increase up to Rs 40-50 per passenger. The government will have to continue subsidies or increase fares to make the service sustainable, sources added.
Based on bus track length, federal government is paying 60 percent of the subsidy and the rest is paid by Punjab government on Islamabad-Rawalpindi metro bus services. On behalf of the federal government, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) is bearing over 60 percent of the subsidy cost for the metro service. CDA had to pay around Rs 4.23 billion by June 30, 2018 as per the agreement.
The bus service between the twin cities began in 2015 but the matter of subsidy was undecided for the first year and a half. The federal government then surrendered to the demand of the Punjab government and decided to pay 60 percent of the subsidy via CDA. Of the 24 kilometers track, 14km is in Islamabad and 10km in Rawalpindi. In December 2016, Islamabad Mayor Sheikh Anser Aziz, who was also CDA chairman at the time, signed an agreement with PMA to this effect.