Chaos or control?

Authorities say there are enough buses for holiday makers to return,but long queues and long waits tell a different story:

by Jaliya Wijeyekoon

Minister of Internal Transport  Ranjith Madduma Bandara (Source: dailynews.lk)

SLCTB Chairman Ramal Siriwardene  (Source: facebook.com)

Senior Manager , Central Bus Complex, Pettah, H.G.C. Kithsiri

As much as the Sinhala and Tamil New Year is about auspicious times and festivities, it is also about travel. The privileged few zoom out of the city in the comfort of their own vehicles, but for the majority the only mode of transport is the public bus and train services, crowded at the best of times, impossibly over-crowded during the holiday season.

Technically, the New Year is a two-day public holiday. But in reality it ends up being a week-long shut-down, with the private sector giving extended leave to its staff and government servants using their annual leave to enjoy some family time. This invariably means Colombo limps, looking somewhat forlorn, but more significantly it means that demand and supply in the transport arena ends up looking lopsided, with the existing number of buses and trains unable to meet the demands of the holiday traveller, whose numbers now bloat to four time the usual, requiring a similar expansion in the number of bus and train services. .

Usually, the Sri Lanka Central Transport Board (SLCTB) and the Sri Lanka Railways (SLR) make special arrangements with their fleet to facilitate the moving hordes, especially those returning to far flung places to celebrate the festivities with kith and kin. But in reality, the numbers hardly match the requirements, paving the way for long queues, equally long waits, frayed tempers and a high degree of overcrowding, both at the beginning and at the end of the holidays.

Have things changed this year? Have the transport officials put together a program that ensured there were enough buses on the road so that people didn't have to wait for long periods to get into buses that were over crowded anyway.

The SLCTB special holiday service came into operation on April 8 and is scheduled to continue till April 21. But the question is, has the service been sufficient? Are there enough buses on long distance routes? Did commuters have to wait in long queues to board the buses? Will getting back to Colombo or elsewhere be a huge frustrating wait at a bus halt?

We posed these questions to the Minister of Internal Transport, Ranjith Madduma Bandara.