KARACHI: The Sindh government on Thursday announced free shuttle service to connect passengers of Orange Line with Green Line as part of the plan to merge the two public transport services of Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS).
The decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the transport department, which was chaired by Sindh Transport Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon.
The meeting discussed the ongoing and upcoming projects of transport and reviewed the progress of development of BRT Red Line.
“It’s time to initiate the proposed merger of Green Line and Orange Line,” a statement issued after the meeting quoted the provincial minister as saying. “For this, a free shuttle service would be launched after Eid. The service would be available from Annu Bhai Park to Jinnah University for Women. This would benefit a large number of people who want to avail both services for their regular movement,” he added.
Sources privy to the original plan of the merger of the two BRT projects claimed that the shuttle service between the two stop of Green and Orange lines was a kind of alternative and not the one which was initially proposed.
“The original plan says that the Orange Line service would ultimately culminate at Nagan Chowrangi, using infrastructure of Green Line,” said a source.
“For that, an interchange would be developed at Board Office bus stop allowing use of Green Line tracks to the Orange Line buses to move on and culminate at Nagan Chowrangi. Since that project may take time to start and then complete, the government has come up with a makeshift arrangement to introduce shuttle service for the merger of the two projects,” the source added.
