PBMS to add 14 buses to its fleet

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, October 13

The Punjab Bus Metro Society (PBMS) is going to add 14 more buses on Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) lane to improve the frequency of metro buses from Wednesday.

The time gap between buses would be reduced by one more minute and it would every five minutes, which is the optimum frequency of the BRTS. Officials of the PBMS claimed that the number of buses would be increased from 72 to 86. At present, total 72 buses are on track and it was sufficient for an average of 30,000 commuters per day.

Expecting more passengers during the festival season, especially with the opening of the Kartarpur corridor, the BRTS is making effort to improve service. The PBMS has 93 buses but the capacity of 31 kilometer track is only 86 buses.

Inderjit Singh Chawala, chief executive officer of the BRTS said: “Passengers have to wait for a bus for six minutes at metro bus stations. We have decided to add more buses to reduce the time gap between two buses on the same route to five minutes. During festival season, the BRTS will attract more passengers”.

In March, BRTS authorities had reduced the time gap from eight minute to six minutes. But after start charging fare, the metro buses witnessed a significant fall in the ridership. The ridership had dipped from 75,000 per day to 25,000. With advertisement and awareness camps, now average ridership has been staying stable at 30,000 per day. Officials claimed that the PMBS had no plan for any further relaxation in fare to attract more passengers.