Karachi’s Green Line Bus Service has completed its first month of official operations today. More than a million passengers traveled on 80 buses through the dedicated corridor by Wednesday evening, increasing hopes that the service will be able to accommodate its estimated number of passengers daily within the first six months.
According to official figures, 1,093,000 passengers traveled on the Green Line without any breaks between the official launch on 10 January and the evening of 9 February. This indicates that 35,000 passengers rode 80 buses on weekdays, with the number occasionally reaching 50,000 on weekends.
Despite intermittent complaints about the state of its connected services, the federal government-funded public transportation project has been considered as a ‘blessing’ by residents, particularly in district Central, who agree that the long-awaited program has finally begun to yield results.
Budget-Friendly Travelling
“It is saving my money, time, and energy,” said a young banker, Umair Ali, from North Nazimabad who stopped riding his motorcycle to his office in Soldier Bazaar.
Passengers like Umair pay between Rs. 15 and Rs. 55 for their tickets to take an 18-meter-long bus that travels 22 km from Surjani Town to Numaish between 22 stations.
The growing public approval has prompted the authorities to implement more changes to make the ticketing system more consumer-friendly.
Abdul Aziz, the senior manager of the Sindh Infrastructure Development Company Ltd. (SIDCL), revealed, “Currently, the passengers are availing tickets manually and by a prepaid card system. Now an app is being developed where the passengers can book their ticket and pay online from anywhere. It would be available soon”.
He considers it a bit too early to make a decision about the project’s status and said the initial analysis will be made after the first six months of its official launch.
Setbacks Doubled Project Cost
The Green Line project was conceived and implemented by the former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, in February 2016 and was expected to be completed within a year at a cost of Rs. 16.85 billion. Unfortunately, it took nearly six years to complete the project and cost Rs. 35 billion.
The project finally became operational on 10 January after years of planning and many setbacks that cost nearly double the original cost.
Orange Line Still Remains Incomplete
Even so, with the launch of the Green Line Bus Service, a question regarding the project’s effectiveness persists as it was initially intended to be connected to the Sindh government’s Orange Line Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS).
Apart from having the shortest route among all of the five BRTS, the Orange Line BRTS is still incomplete although it has been five years since it started.
Several observers are unsure of the opening of the Sindh government project although authorities insist it will be functional in the first quarter of this year.
“The infrastructure development works on the Orange Line — which has been renamed after Abdul Sattar Edhi as the Abdul Sattar Edhi Line — is almost done and we are only waiting for the shipment of buses from China. The buses in China have already reached their final phase of production and are expected to be here within the next two to three weeks,” an official claimed.
