Staff Reporter
The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has decided to procure 45 buses to start metro bus service from Peshawar Morr to Islamabad International Airport (IIA). The service will start from January 2022.
According to CDA Chairman Amer Ahmed Ali the civic agency plans to construct a bus depot worth Rs800 million at Peshawar Mor where buses would be parked that runs on different routes.
“The idea behind the use of one depot for all buses is to avoid investment again and again on different depots,” he said.
Besides establishing a traffic control room, a smart traffic management system will be introduced to check violations of traffic rules and even overloading by local transports.
According to the CDA Chief a few months ago, the National Highway Authority (NHSA) had handed over the Peshawar Mor-IIA metro bus project to the civic agency.
“We have approved a PC-1 and started the process to procure 45 buses which will be run on the route.
As tenders will open on Oct 15, we hope that we will receive the buses by January and the service will be started the same month,” he said.
A control room and a smart traffic system will be established with prefabricated material which will save time and make them operational within six months.
Meanwhile, according to a statement, the CDA chairman chaired a meeting which was attended by CDA officers and consultants of the project.
The meeting reviewed progress on the metro bus project from Peshawar Mor to the IIA.
The meeting also reviewed missing facilities in the project and agreed that a separate PC-I should be prepared in consultation with experts to include required facilities such as intelligent transportation system, including automated fare collection, security surveillance, bus scheduling, vehicular location and command and control systems.
The consultants briefed the meeting about the facilities to be provided to the commuters at each bus station to facilitate them which include walk-through gates, security cameras, wifi, real time passenger information display and public announcement system.
A detailed layout plan of the bus depot was also presented in the meeting.
The bus depot contained separate areas for maintenance workshop, service area, resting area for drivers, admin block, parking bays, command and control centre and offices.
It was also decided that the bus depot would not only meet the requirements of the metro bus service but would also fulfill similar needs of the Islamabad bus service project. One depot will provide a consolidated and comprehensive cost effective solution.
The Chairman CDA also directed the project director and consultants of the project to ensure that procurement of buses was completed within four months in order to extend this facility to the citizens in the shortest possible time.
