Semi luxury bus service will be discontinued after considering the representations on grievances of those bus owners, Passenger transport management service Minister Mahinda Amaraweera told an official meeting in Colombo recently.
He told team of representatives of luxury bus owners that he cannot allow them to provide a poor service to commuters without giving any facilities for passengers.
Bus commuters have made repeated requests to Transport Ministry to remove 450 semi luxury busses from service as it has become an annoyance rather than a service, he divulged.
National Transport Commission has conducted a survey with a commuter sample of 10,000 and 68 percent of them were of the view that Semi luxury bus service is no longer required for them.
8 percent of commuters noted that they have got into the bus without knowing that it was a semi luxury bus.
However representatives of semi luxury bus owners informed the minister that they would like to continue the service making it as express limited bus stop
But Minister told them that he cannot agree to this proposal that although the name of the service is changed, they are levying the same bus fare.
A survey conducted on the private bus service by the National Transport Commission (NTC) has recommended the winding up of semi-luxury bus service as these bus operators charge double the normal fare from passengers sans any luxury at all in the bus,” Minister Amaraweera said.
The NTC study was conducted in early this year engaging 10,000 passengers chosen from all nine provinces. Almost all those who participated in the study had said that semi-luxury bus service was not necessary.
(LI)