KARACHI: Pakistan’s traffic-clogged megapolis of Karachi has launched the country’s first electric bus service, which authorities seek to expand to a fleet of 100 vehicles by the year’s end.
The bus service operated by Sapphire, a private company, was inaugurated on Tuesday by the Sindh province’s transportation minister, Syed Owais Shah.
“The electric buses will for the first time run in the country in Sindh province,” the minister said during the launching ceremony. “By the end of this year, the number of these vehicles will rise to 100.”
Passengers are aboard one of Karachi's first electric busses on March 30, 2021. (Photo courtesy: Sindh Transport Department)
Ten buses now run on a trial basis from Sohrab Goth via MA Jinnah and Shahra-e-Pakistan to the Tower area of the city. Each bus has a 37-seat capacity and charges Rs10 per one stop.
“The bus service has been started by a private group, named Sapphire, and the provincial government has extended its support in form of route permit,” Shariq Ahmed, the province’s transport and mass transit secretary, told Arab News on Wednesday.
It is estimated that only 4,000 public transport carriers operate in Karachi, a city of over 15 million people. Merely 400 out those vehicles are big buses, with the rest being minibuses and coaches. The city has 60 routes for big buses, out of which 47 are not operational.
Works on mass public transportation in Pakistan’s most populous city have been ongoing for years with little success so far.
In February, the government unveiled a plan to power over 200 of the port city’s public buses with biogas under a project funded from a $235 million loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). It is expected to commence in 2023.
Another mass transport project, Green Line (GL), has been under construction since 2016.
