LPBOA Demands Bus Fare Revision

The minimum bus fare needs to be increased to Rs 10 from 1 July 2017, the Lanka Private Bus Owners Association (LPBOA) said yesterday(21). Because annual bus fare revision is due on 1 July .

Although we are expecting the minimum fare to increase to Rs10 , we do not expect bus fares to change by large percentage.

The NTC is obliged to conduct passenger surveys prior revising the bus fare every year, but not a single passenger survey was conducted by the NTC, Gemunu blamed.

It is the passengers,  who pay the bus fare. Hence, it is the duty of the Government to assess the expectations of passengers in terms of price, comfortability  and other factors.

There are four kinds of bus services in Sri Lanka as per the NTC. Given the nature of bus services available there can be only two bus services in Sri Lanka. Semi luxury and Super Luxury catagories have to be abolished. These issues were not highlighted as passenger surveys were not conducted.