In a recent meeting with the Punjab Metro Bus Authority (PMBA), Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said the Lahore Metro Bus Project was benefitting 1.5 million people on a daily basis. The Rawalpindi-Islamabad Metro Bus Project, which is nearing completion, also came up in the discussion. However, there was no mention of the problems the commuters in the MTBS’s Lahore chapter are facing, chiefly due to the (almost) nonfunctional escalators.
The commuters using the escalators have to ‘climb’ their way up every single time, because these are usually not working.
TNS learns that the good few escalators that are in working condition take time to restart, after a power outage has happened, because there is only one operator (man in charge) at a bus station. The operator has to go through the exercise of switching to the generator every time.
The situation becomes worse when an escalator stops working. The repairing job takes ages. The delay is usually caused by the fact that the spare parts of the escalators have to be imported from Turkey.
Interestingly, all the metro bus stations in the city possess the facility (of electronically managed escalators) but the PMBA has allowed this only to those going upstairs. It is assumed that the commuters, however old or ailing, would have no trouble taking the stairs while stepping down.
Source
