Public transport, the last thing the daily commuters in Sri Lanka wish to look at specially those who can afford a private transport method even at a higher cost.
This is mainly due to the poor reliability factor of the public transport system in Sri Lanka, and also various other unpopular reasons. Public transport system is the most used method of transport in the developed world and it is the daily mode of transport for the majority of commuters. The best case study a person can make would be to look at a country such as Japan that manufactures the best of the cars in volume, for the world. How many households in Japan own a car is a question worth asking ourselves in order to understand the far-sighted thinking behind vehicle ownership in Japan.
It is understood that in the current scenario of affairs where there is a shortage of fuel supply over 50% of the public transport system does not operate mainly the private buses. This is a pity as these are the best ways of carrying passengers at the most economical way for the country. It is necessary to understand the economics of this operation by way of passengers per litre of fuel in order to maximize the limited fuel supply the country gets as of now until things improve. It is critical that we make the public transport more reliable, friendly and also timely so that you build the confidence among the users. Below are some of the points that can be considered in fine-tuning the system to meet today’s customer demand.
1. All buses to be taken to a central authority and the central authority to operate the buses on a predetermined schedule. The individual bus owners to be paid by this authority for the mileage they put on or any other reasonable criteria so that the cost factors are covered for each individual owner.
2. Segment the available total fleet of buses and assign them to different routes based on the commuter requirements and on a common time table
with SLTB in order to make the total system more productive from a national point of view and the waste is minimized. We need to realize if any of these public transport units run empty or run at half load it is a national waste and not a loss only for the individual bus owners. 3. Fuel to be pumped by this authority through the SLTB fuel stations and the maintenance to be undertaken by them as well. At the end of a period the authority to settle the owners with the net income. This will release the owners and drivers from being in fuel queues for hours spending their valuable time. As I understand most buses now run once in 2/3 days on their specified route due to their having to waste time standing in fuel queues. In addition to the above this will also ensure the below,
a. There are a sufficient number of buses on the road, at any given time.
b. Remove undue competition among the CTB and the private buses.
c. Reduce accidents and create discipline in the system.
d. Create passenger confidence in the public transport system.
e. Reduce cost and will help in ensuring that the subsidies given are equally, and fairly distributed. (Such as the duty free tyres, spare parts etc.)
f. All buses run on a common platform of charges etc and the possibility of the entire system being digitized such as e tickets, online bookings and tracking of locations etc.
4. Introduce an electronic payment card that will enable online tracking of buses. This will also enable to improve productivity by eliminating
the need of a conductor who could be used for a more productive responsibility.
5. Synchronize bus time tables with those of the trains for better productivity.
6. Running schedules also have to be fine-tuned with timely departures and arrivals and there should be sufficient availability of services. Ideally, on the main routes that take the crowd from Colombo to the sub urban areas have to have connections every 5 minutes if commuters are to create confidence in the system.
Once the confidence is built and the usage increases many other aspects of service improvements can be looked at, such as luxury low floor buses, Air conditioned units etc.
Whilst the above may not be the best ways to organize the passenger services in Sri Lanka it could sound the need to look at re-organizing the passenger transport services with further expert advice and the involvement of the relevant regulatory authorities.
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