PBOA irked over reduction in passengers

By Shezna Shums

The Private Bus Owners' Association (PBOA) has recorded a significant reduction in the number of bus passengers entering the city of Colombo.

President, PBOA, Gemunu Wijeratne said that following several terrorist attacks on the public transportation system the PBOA noticed that a large number of people are avoiding travelling in buses and altogether avoid coming into Colombo if possible.

Given the deteriorating security situation in Colombo and within the public transportation system, people from the suburbs and outstations prefer to do their shopping in the areas they live in rather than travel to Colombo.

Passengers travel to Colombo only when there is an urgent need to do their work in the city, he said.

Owing to these public fears and action taken by the public the PBOA is now seeing less passengers travelling in the buses.

Other problems encountered by the PBOA, owing to the new security and traffic arrangements is that long distance buses are not allowed on the Galle Road as well as on Duplication Road in Colombo.

The PBOA is currently in discussion with the authorities to sort out this problem.

The PBOA states that the one way system does not cause problems with regard to the amount of diesel used, and in fact they find that traffic moves much faster.

The National Transport Commission officials said that they were unable to comment on the reduction in passengers as a survey has not been done, but stated that the PBOA figures must be correct as they count their profits daily.

The NTC noted that whenever there is a fuel price increase, terrorist attacks on public transportation or a rise in the cost of living it is obvious that the number passengers was bound to decline, and that this may be a temporary feature.