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The Capital Development Authority (CDA) will start testing the metro bus service between Peshawar Mor and New Islamabad International Airport (NIIA) within month, i.e., from Mid-March to mid-April.
As per the plan, around 20-24 buses will run from Peshawar Mor to the N5 bus station on GT Road, and six buses with extra luggage storage will run round the clock uninterruptedly from N5 to the airport.
The CDA will officially inaugurate the service from March 23, however, the trial will start from March 15, a CDA official confirmed to daily business Recorder.
The Peshawar Mor Central Station will function as the designated pick-up point.
The fare on this route will be same as Rs 30 per passenger.
CDA has ordered 30 buses from a Chinese bus maker, half of which are set to be shipped to Pakistan and the remaining are in the final phase of manufacturing.
To prevent more delays, the National Highway Authority (NHA) will conduct pre-shipment inspections of the available buses via third parties because of Chinese COVID-19 restrictions.
The orange, 12-meter-long buses are likely to arrive in Pakistan in the middle of April, after which the CDA will road test them with manual ticketing because of the delayed installment of the automated systems.
The National Highways Authority (NHA) has already handed over the metro bus project from Peshawar Mor to IIA to the CDA in March 2021 after executing the construction work to run the bus service.
The NHA launched work on the 25.6-km-long track from Peshawar Mor to the IIA worth Rs16 billion in January 2017. The project was supposed to complete in August 2018. However, due to slow release of funds, the project saw delays.
The metro track’s corridors and stations have already been built and now require the completion of the command and control, station administration, cleaning, security, and the ticketing system.
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