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Colombo's public road transportation will reach a new dimension end January with Transbus International of UK, a member of the Ibis Consortium which purchased six Sri Lankan Peoplised bus companies for Rs. 1.45 billion on October 31, introducing double decker buses to service the highly traffic congested Colombo and the metropolitan areas.

Transbus International will import 20 double deckers end January which will ply the Colombo-Panadura route which will serve as a pilot project, Transbus International's Technical and Export Support Services Director Robin Merriman told the 'Daily News' yesterday.

This will be followed by the import of a further 20 double deckers which will be air-conditioned and these will run on the Colombo-Panadura route, the Colombo-Homagama route and also the Colombo-Negombo route, Merriman said.

Responding to a question as to the modality of importing the buses from UK in parts and assembling them in Colombo, Merriman said that they will be brought in a fully assembled state in a Roll-On Roll-Off- Ship.

The idea behind the proposed double decker project is to provide a dedicated and efficient transport network giving Colombo's white collar worker a comfortable and stress-free ride to office and back at a very competitive price, he said added that there will not be a price revision. Transbus International's Project Director Ian Bulley said that Sri Lanka is the third Asian nation in which Transbus will successfully operate after Singapore and Hong Kong in which the UK transport operator has over 2,000 buses These buses will have women conducters.

The idea is to have an efficient service and these buses are very user friendly and easily manoeuvrable in contrast to the single deck buses, he said. Bulley said that these buses were brand new in contrast to the second hand ones which plied on the roads of London and imported to Sri Lanka in the 1970s.

Bulley also held negotiations with the Private Bus Operators Association who did not have any objections to their operations. We are in partnership with the private operators, he said.

Bulley said that his company was confident of recovering the Rs. 1.45 billion investment in Sri Lanka within three years.

Among the user friendly features of these buses are: Aluminium body structures over Trident floor chassis, left hand/right hand steering options, one or two door glider or outswing plug options, forward/central stair-case options, manual or power ramp at entrance exit doors,luggage rack options internal window blinds and full CCTV monitoring with internal and external cameras. These buses will also be full wheel-chair and scooter accessible.(RL)

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