An express bus service between Surya Binayak of Bhaktapur and Ratna Park of Kathmandu is set to commence from Wednesday.
The Department of Roads is painting a portion of the road red to set aside a dedicated lane for the express bus service and aims to complete the work by Wednesday.
According to Ishwar Datta Paneru, information officer at the Department of Transport Management, the express bus service will be inaugurated on the occasion of Constitution Day on Wednesday while 25 buses will start operating on the Surya Binayak-Ratna Park route from Thursday as part of the express bus service.
The buses will have a dedicated lane on either side of the road and will operate in two shifts, from 9-11 AM and from 4-6 PM, during rush hours every day. Apart from the buses, only ambulances, fire engines, hearses, and office vehicles carrying employees will be allowed to use the lane during those periods.
Paneru said that the express bus service is being launched in view of the extreme traffic jams during rush hours.
According to him, it currently takes up to one-and-a-half hours to reach Ratna Park from Surya Binayak during rush hours and their goal is to reduce the time to 45 minutes. “For that, specific locations have been designated for picking and dropping passengers and the buses will not wait for passengers. They will pick and drop passengers within 30 seconds,” he added.
The 25 buses are being operated as part of the express bus service in collaboration with the Federation of Nepalese National Transport Entrepreneurs. These buses are not new but the same big buses that have been operating on the Surya Binayak-Ratna Park route. However, they will have “Express bus service” written at the front to make it easy for commuters to distinguish them from other buses, Paneru said.
Watch the interview with Paneru:
