BRT daily commuters tally crosses 270,000 mark

PESHAWAR: The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system's daily commuters tally has crossed the 270,000 mark this year out of which, approximately 70,000 are women.

A communication said around 200,000 Zu cards have been sold in 2022 while the total number of cards sold since the beginning now stands at 1.2 million. Since the beginning of this year, Zu Peshawar has facilitated 29 million commuters which takes the total number of such people to date to over 91 million.

The number of new express route ER 10, from Hospital Chowk to Kohat Adda was also operationalized in the first half of this year. Apart from Zu Bus Service, Zu Bicycle Service witnessed 1550 new registrations and the system is being utilized for approximately 700 trips a day. The registration fee has been reduced by Rs 2000.

The Peshawar BRT System was also presented as a model bus rapid transit system on various international platforms including the Asia and Pacific transport forum 2022, Paratransit in Asia webinar and the Mobilize Virtual Webinar.

TransPeshawar has registered another 255 old wagons and buses to be scrapped in the second phase of its Bus Industry Restructuring Programme (BIRP).

A total of 153 of these vehicles have been received and 40 scrapped. During the first phase last year, 359 vehicles were scrapped and an amount of Rs. 400 million has been paid to the owners.

This year Zu Peshawar is also focusing on generating non-fare revenues. Advertising contracts worth Rs. 350 million have been signed in the first half of the year. Zu Peshawar collaborated with its service providers to undertake the beautification work of Peshawar.

Tuck shops have been set up at 16 stations and an ATM has been set up and made operational at the University of Peshawar Station, besides a facility to recharge Zu mobile app through the Omni app has also been provided.