Quality of Public transport services In Lahore

By: Umer Rehman Transportation is one of the major parts of our social life today. Living without any transportation means is unimaginable as the world has changed to a global village with the advent of new technologies and newer vehicles being introduced with higher speeds and less time consumption. People want faster and easy means of traveling to their destination in less time and low costs. To achieve their aims and goals people also have their own vehicles to travel on, but there is a large majority of people who cant afford to buy even a motorcycle for them, and for such people, is the public transport in every part of the world. In Pakistan the problem of transport is at rise. With increase in Population and low income level every person cant afford to own a personal transportation. To provide transportation and traveling facilities, Government has provided various licenses to urban and rural transport companies, which run busses and vans etc. Currently in Pakistan there are various small and large scale transport companies providing travel and transportation of goods services to general public in all parts of the country, but there is no unified and standardized service provider which can be named as the best. While doing my masters, in the Final thesis Project I took up this matter to look into the problems and matters which are causing problems for the general public while traveling in Public transport and the reason people are shifting to Private transport instead of using the public transport. I with my group mates took on this issue and made it to the end with what so ever we felt is worth mentioning and highlighting. For this purpose, a survey was conducted, based on questionnaires. Four Questionnaires were developed and then around 450 people were interviewed and made to fill the questionnaires which include 1. 2. 3. 4. Passengers Drivers Bus/Van Owners Traffic Constables

After the complete study and through research done on the Public transport and personal interviews in the form of Questionnaires, we have concluded that there are enormous problems being faced by all the stake holders in the running Public transport on roads. There is no proper infrastructure and proper government planning in order to run the Public transport in the city of Lahore. After issuing the License to the Company or Owner of the vans and busses on any specific rout, are not followed up for the maintenance of their quality and maintenance of the vans and busses. There is no check and balance process in action on roads. The city Traffic Police is there in place to perform its duties and is contributing as much as they can but due to unclear laws and unmanaged road structure causing over

crowded roads, they are also unable to perform their duties efficiently. There is no proper infrastructure through which the drivers of Busses and Vans can undergo a proper testing phase before they are allowed to come on road except to the license issuing process which itself is ambiguous as it only check the ability of a person to drive and not to be driving safely and properly as in accordance to the laws prevailing in the country. Following are the views which were shared by the people who were interviewed under the four categories as mentioned above. 1. According to the passengers they are not satisfied with the conditions of the busses and vans, but they have to travel as there is no other option for them else to avail the current Bus and Van services. Passengers complain about the over speeding and rash driving of the Bus/Van drivers and unavailability of the seats in the vehicles in time. 2. The Drivers say that they drive and maintain their busses and vans and drive carefully and dont do over speeding, maintain their busses and vans on daily basis and get them checked on weekly basis. And they care for the passengers and allow them properly to get on and get off from the busses. 3. The traffic constables shared that, the load on roads can be reduced by widening the roads, place proper road signs to guide the road users about how to drive ahead. Secondly by improving the quality of the public transport and introducing government funded high class buses to reduce load of private cars on roads specially the ones being driven by single person. Make new underpasses and flyovers to reduce the rush times and put ban on leasing of cars from Banks. 4. The owners of the busses and vans said that they maintain their records daily. They get their vehicles checked every day and on weekly basis. They hire drivers on their experience and keep an eye on their conduct and behavior with the passengers and also strike down them if theres any complaint about the behavior of drivers. We as a group have conducted the detailed research and have come up with this view that there is no proper check and balance for the Public Transport. The respective authorities are not performing their duties properly. There are Laws and rules existing on ground and a complete transportation policy as well but the main problem is its proper implementation. The condition of Public transport is not satisfactory and there are too many problems in the whole system. From the issuance of license to the training and many other phases of the transport system there is no proper check and balance, because there are no clear directions for the authorities how to keep a check on the transport services.

Recommendations on Research:
On the basis of the research conducted, we came up with the following recommendations: 1. Improve the public transport quality in Lahore, because 50-70% people use public transportation which includes 80% people who travel in public transport on daily basis. 2. More routs for the populated areas should be allotted more to Busses preferably by the government as the ratio of public transport to the population in those areas is very low. 3. Use the nest vehicles that are properly maintained and are in good condition. 4. Passengers look for three things before riding a bus or van, first comfort, second time punctuality and third price. Government and transportation department should focus on all these to improve quality of transport. 5. Create separate sets for female passengers in vans as there are separate portion for them in busses. 6. To remove and reduce the bad impact of our public transport regarding the safety issues, trained and educated drivers and fare collectors should be hired through a proper test. Companies hiring drivers should be forced to hire properly trained and license holding educated drivers only. 7. To improve the public transportation quality on road government should focus on the road infrastructure and driving training. 8. Checking of the proper driving license and its maintenance on regular basis as being up-to-date and registered, should be made mandatory through Traffic Police. 9. Most of the Owners are more concerned about their income instead of the Quality of their Busses and Vans so government should intervene here and build an authority Which checks the Quality of Busses and vans coming on roads on random basis under certain Standards and quality control rules which should be developed by some institution like PSQCA (Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority) and issue notices and fines to the non-compliant companies and owners to the Standards of the PSQCA regarding to the public transports. 10. Government authorities should issue a proper rate list for all the routs which are unified for every Bus and Van on One rout regardless of the company or Owner running it.

Conclusion
All these recommendations are developed with a view to be implemented by the Government, related authorities and departments involved in the process of providing the transportation facilities to the public, so that we can have a properly managed Public transportation system which will help in managing the road traffic, reduction in rush hours and overloading cases of busses and vans on roads and also a better and cleaner environment.