Advisor to the KP Chief Minister on Finance Muzzammil Aslam, reacting to the arrival of 25 new buses for Peshawar BRT, said that another 27 new buses would also arrive in Peshawar from China. Advisor to the KP Chief Minister on Finance Muzzammil Aslam, expressed these views in a statement issued from his office yesterday.
Muzzammil Aslam said that with the arrival of the new buses, the total number of buses for Peshawar BRT would reach 296, while the Peshawar BRT route is 27 kilometres long.
He said that the Lahore Metro has a 28-kilometre route but operates with only 64 buses. Despite Lahore having almost twice the population of Peshawar, only 64 buses are operating on the Lahore Metro.
The Finance Advisor said that the Multan Metro operates on an 18.7-kilometre route with only 43 buses, while the Karachi Green Line has 80 buses on an 18-kilometre route. Despite Karachi having several times the population of Peshawar, the Green Line has only 80 buses.
Muzzammil Aslam said that the Rawalpindi-Islamabad Metro operates on an 83-kilometre route with 99 buses, while Punjab, with a population of around 130 million, has only 107 Metro buses.
He said that if Islamabad is included, the total number of Metro buses in Punjab and Islamabad is 206. If Karachi is also included, the total reaches 286 buses.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Finance Advisor said that the number of buses in Peshawar BRT is higher than the combined Metro services of Lahore, Multan, Karachi and Rawalpindi-Islamabad. Even the total number of Metro buses in Punjab, Islamabad and Karachi is lower than the 296 buses of Peshawar BRT.
KP Advisor on Finance Muzzammil Aslam said that the biggest difference between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s BRT and other metro bus systems is that of Generation 1 and Generation 3. Lahore, Karachi and Multan have the older Generation-1 system, which transports passengers from Point A to Point B through a single corridor. In these systems, buses cannot enter or exit the BRT corridor.
He said that the situation is different in Peshawar BRT. The operational length of our BRT corridor is not merely 27 kilometres; it extends to 132 kilometres. The same 132-kilometre network is utilized, including the return routes. This unique feature makes Peshawar BRT a distinctive system of its kind.
Muzzammil Aslam further said that Peshawar BRT is the only Bus Rapid Transit system in Pakistan that has achieved 97 points under the ITDP Gold Standard. No other BRT system in the world has achieved such a score. Lahore BRT, with fewer than 50 points, is categorized as only a basic BRT system.
Muzzammil Aslam said that perhaps these facts remain hidden from the media cameras.