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Islamabad Metro Bus, Lahore Metro Bus Criticism

It would be worse if the metro was not running.

London has underground train, buses, light railways, overground, trams and private coaches to cater the needs of passengers and still we face regular traffic congestion on every major road.

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That is a disingenuous argument. You know and I know that 'traffic' in a Western country is a completely different beast than 'traffic' in a country like Pakistan. If you're going to build MetroBus which costs $20mil/km then you should also invest money in educating the public on the benefits of public transit to reduce road congestion.

Also, the picture you have uploaded is a HIGHWAY, meaning suburbanites going in and out of the city core while the picture I have quoted is a result of bad planning on an inner city road.
 
so i heard that 1122 is asking for donations ? Seems like supporting 1122 (which saves life) in the priority list comes after providing metro to a city ??
 
That is a disingenuous argument. You know and I know that 'traffic' in a Western country is a completely different beast than 'traffic' in a country like Pakistan. If you're going to build MetroBus which costs $20mil/km then you should also invest money in educating the public on the benefits of public transit to reduce road congestion.

Also, the picture you have uploaded is a HIGHWAY, meaning suburbanites going in and out of the city core while the picture I have quoted is a result of bad planning on an inner city road.
I am not justifying the cost of metro bus. All I am saying is, transportation systems are required to cater the needs of people. The picture you showed didn't show the congestion history of that area. If an average of 100,000 people travels on metro bus it is safe to assume that 20,000 or so vehicles would have been disappeared from that route easing the traffic flows of that particular area.

And agreed that I shared the picture of highway as I didn't want to shed to tears by showing you the pictures of inner roads. The road outside my home is always congested to start with and it sometimes takes me 1 hour and 40 minutes to travel 10 miles of journey inside London.
 
I am not justifying the cost of metro bus. All I am saying is, transportation systems are required to cater the needs of people. The picture you showed didn't show the congestion history of that area. If an average of 100,000 people travels on metro bus it is safe to assume that 20,000 or so vehicles would have been disappeared from that route easing the traffic flows of that particular area.

And agreed that I shared the picture of highway as I didn't want to shed to tears by showing you the pictures of inner roads. The road outside my home is always congested to start with and it sometimes takes me 1 hour and 40 minutes to travel 10 miles of journey inside London.


Congestion history or not; in the picture I have uploaded, there is not a single traffic cop in sight nor did the PMLN administration thought it wise to install traffic lights. Simply throwing up cement and concrete to show off new toys like MetroBus but no investment in core issues.

So far it doesn't seem that MetroBus project has taken any significant number of cars off the roads; it has only taken off some mini-buses, small vans in Islamabad off the road. Not enough to justify the MetroBus project.

Even inner city London traffic is not the traffic of Karachi or Lahore inner city mess.

But yes I understand what you are trying to say. Peace.
 
Congestion history or not; in the picture I have uploaded, there is not a single traffic cop in sight nor did the PMLN administration thought it wise to install traffic lights. Simply throwing up cement and concrete to show off new toys like MetroBus but no investment in core issues.

So far it doesn't seem that MetroBus project has taken any significant number of cars off the roads; it has only taken off some mini-buses, small vans in Islamabad off the road. Not enough to justify the MetroBus project.

Even inner city London traffic is not the traffic of Karachi or Lahore inner city mess.

But yes I understand what you are trying to say. Peace.


Chorro yaar.

Have you lived in Lahore or Pindi? on a busy road

if so. Do you travel by personal car or rickshaw/wagon

Then see if you could share your experience by traveling on metro bus.

If this is not the case, you don't have any leg to stand on. Sorry.
 
Ask those who can reach any where in twin cities in 20 rupees...of course if you have your own saloon...you wouldn't take my argument..!

Chorro yaar.

Have you lived in Lahore or Pindi? on a busy road

if so. Do you travel by personal car or rickshaw/wagon

Then see if you could share your experience by traveling on metro bus.

If this is not the case, you don't have any leg to stand on. Sorry.

That was my point! and its not even about any luxurious car, car travel is a lifestyle choice. When you're deploying the world's most expensive $20mil/km MetroBus project, you have to invest in changing people's attitudes towards public transit and persuade them to make the leap from a car-addiction lifestyle to a public transit user lifestyle choice. This is where PMLN has failed since the MetroBus project has not resulted in any significant reduction of private cars with only one person inside.

Right now the only people using MetroBus are those who used to be stuck traveling on wagons, mini-buses, etc and some families for whom the MetroBus is a 'novelty' as evident by aunties n kids dressing up like its Eid to travel on MetroBus as a 'sightseeing experience' - the novelty factor soon wears off.

What the MetroBus project needed is educating the public towards making a lifestyle choice change from car-addiction to public transit - especially single user cars.
 
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That was my point! and its not even about any luxurious car, car travel is a lifestyle choice. When you're deploying the world's most expensive $20mil/km MetroBus project, you have to invest in changing people's attitudes towards public transit and persuade them to make the leap from a car-addiction lifestyle to a public transit user lifestyle choice. This is where PMLN has failed since the MetroBus project has not resulted in any significant reduction of private cars with only one person inside.
Sir you have been mentioning 20 mil dollars per kilometres in many posts I just want to question what do you think should have been a fair price for this project?

You might already been aware of the fact that cost of construction is comparatively higher in Pakistan as we import most of the material required to build infrastructure.You might also be aware of the fact that both Metro's in Lahore and Pindi-Islamabad were built in fairly expensive area so the acquisition of land would be very high. Heck, we even import engineers from China to work on mega projects. The only positive factor is cheap labour but I highly doubt it would save you much when you have already spent a lot in imports and technical expertise.

The project of Lahore Metrobus is inspired by Istanbul Metrobus and very few examples in the world exists for such a project. So we are technically short of examples for comparison. I would have personally preferred to make the project cheaper by widening existing roads and adding two one-way lanes for dedicated bus tracks with small dividers to keep them separated from rest of the traffic and it would have saved you a lot of money. The Punjab government preferred alternative designs and the massive advertising campaign swelled the cost of project even more.

My ideal design is something like transjakarta... Bridges only near the junctions if required

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I am not justifying the cost of metro bus. All I am saying is, transportation systems are required to cater the needs of people. The picture you showed didn't show the congestion history of that area. If an average of 100,000 people travels on metro bus it is safe to assume that 20,000 or so vehicles would have been disappeared from that route easing the traffic flows of that particular area.

In China the Communist Government in 2011, implemented a unique policy of introducing for the first time a HSR network grid from Beijing to Shanghai. Certain factions within the party and the general public were lobbying against the pursuit of such an investment due to its initial cost and dissent from the aviation industry. However, eventually the public has accepted and appreciated such a colossal project because it caters in providing a cheap service for the average consumer. Since the route from Beijing to Shanghai was successful, roughly 16,000 km of HSR network has been added across China. This has reduced vehicle transportation as a mode to reach other cities in China. In my opinion the cost of the Metro Bus project in Rawalpindi was high, however it will definitely benefit the common man on the street, thus should be implemented across all cities in Pakistan.
 
............ you have to invest in changing people's attitudes towards public transit and persuade them to make the leap from a car-addiction lifestyle to a public transit user lifestyle choice..

Will happen in due time.
Few weeks will not change things.
Let's learn to appreciate good aspects.
 
Here comes another nail on this massively corrupt, economically unviable MetroBus tamasha of PMLN.
Even the pro-PMLN and anti-PTI Express Tribune can't keep quiet over this.

Economically unviable: Metro Bus - a white elephant painted red - The Express Tribune


The recently-launched Rawalpindi-Islamabad Metro Bus Service has been hailed as a ‘development gift’ by the leadership of PML-N for the people of the twin cities.

As the intra-city public transport across the country remains in shambles, the launch of this new Metro bus service needs to be appreciated. However, the business model of the bus service under an otherwise business-savvy regime leaves much to be desired.

It is ironic that the political party that voted to privatise bleeding State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) is creating new SOEs. PML-N was voted to privatise PIA and Railways – instead it has started running buses with state support.

When price is distorted, either by fixing floors or ceilings; functioning and competitive markets disappear. Such markets push genuine market participants out by both, an excess demand and supply glut.

The Rawalpindi-Islamabad (renamed as Pakistan) Metro Bus Project (PMBP) is a case of price ceiling, which has created an excess demand and put unnecessary burden on the new service. It is also diverting genuine customers from using it.

To gain first-hand experience, I undertook a complete round trip on a hot Friday afternoon.

Read: New beginnings: Residents welcome metro bus service

In my interviews with fellow passengers, I was amazed to find ‘non-customers’- i.e. people travelling who would otherwise have never travelled on the same route by any means.

A market price is the only yardstick which allocates resources according to the valuation a customer places. In the absence of market price, it becomes impossible to judge customer valuation.

Result: on busy stops, there was an average waiting time period of half an hour just to get a ticket, which was defeating the very purpose of starting this Metro service.

The official numbers

The current ticket is flat Rs20, irrespective of the number of stops in a journey. If the government wishes to only recover the capital costs invested in the new service – Rs45 billion – it will take approximately 28 years at the going rate. However, there is no plan in place for it.

For each ticket, the federal and provincial government will pay Rs50 as subsidy which amounts to Rs2 billion every year. This also means that PMBP will be subsidised by non-users.

An important parameter of price is opportunity cost principle. Before PMBP was inaugurated, a passenger travelling from Pindi, Saddar to Islamabad, Secretariat would pay around Rs50 one way for an unsafe, uncomfortable and disjointed public transport.

The replacement with a reliable, respectable and faster bus service should have been accompanied with a slightly higher price. However, as politicians loath basic economics, they fixed a much lower price of Rs20, thus creating excess demand.

According to official numbers, the average operating cost for a bus trip comes out to be around Rs9,100. The average revenue for the same trip earned by the Authority is Rs2,600, recording a loss of Rs6,500 on every trip.

Read: Lined with gold? After paving paradise, metro bus takes off

This route witnesses around 1,000 such trips every day. It means that the daily revenue is not sufficient to make up for the variable expenses. This is what we call ‘shut-down condition’.

At this rate, any going concern would prefer closing down operations instead of sustaining losses.

The Metro bus tariff also defies a common practice around the world – “pay as you go”, whereas the Metro service is built on flat pricing.

A passenger traveling from Centaurus Towers (the anti-commerce bias got the name changed to PIMS) to Secretariat should pay less than the customer travelling from Secretariat to Saddar. However, because we are all followers of cross-subsidy idea, we end up charging everyone the same.

In other words, short distance travellers pay for long-distance travellers. This incentivises passengers to travel longer for just maximising their joy ride and keeping real customers out of the bay.

In short, Metro bus service undertakes to solve one of the most pressing problems of our cities – absence of reliable and good quality public transport.

In that, it doles out welfare instead of following a fiscally responsible and economically viable approach. The federal and provincial governments thus have set a bad model of solving a real problem and have ended up creating one more white elephant, painted in red!

the writer is founder and executive director of PRIME Institute, an independent think tank based in Islamabad

Published in The Express Tribune, June 29th, 2015.

Jiyo patwariyo, jiyo! :p
 
old woman:
hye hye metro ne mar dya, arrey koi bachao hamain to metro.mar gye
arey hay koi alah ka banada jo hamain bacha le metro se

a passer by: Arrey ama metro to aik bus hay wo kasey marey gi aap ko

old woman: arrey yeh kambakhat PTI wala to keh raha tha Metro aik pagal kuta hay jo borhoon ko kha raha hay aaj kul

I wanna give you a warm brass of top khana.
 
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