There are private buses on the Southern Expressway. I noticed because the bus smelled slightly more of fried food. And because a friend asked. On the plus side, the in-drive entertainment was WAY better than the usual blasting music show, and they gave a customer satisfaction survey, shown above. I remain impressed with the new bus culture.
Traditional Sri Lankan bus culture is retarded. First the government regulates fares down to a subsistence level, even if the market can pay to not suffer. So you get ancient, uncomfortable and often dangerous buses that can only compete on volume and speed. They wait forever so they can fill up, and they often fill up to slave-ship levels. I’ve seen people passing out and nearly suffocating. Then they go at stupid speeds. They blast terrible music to keep the driver awake, which makes it hard for everybody else to sleep. Then they stop for shitty tea and food even on a three hour trip. It sucks.
The personal culture has also warped to reflect. People lock their legs wide open for that extra inch of space. Girls get harassed on the regular. Bus drivers drive like sociopaths at worst, assholes at best. It’s ugly.
On the Expressway buses, however, the government (and now companies) provide a decent service and people behave like decent citizens. It’s such a relief, and it makes public transport tolerable for the general public again, meaning women, children, people who’ve reached a comfortable level in their lives even if they can’t afford a car. I hope the new culture spreads and the old culture dies. Customer service forms on a bus, for example. Wow.
Note: People keep asking me. To take the Expressway Bus just show up at the Maharagama Bus Stand at :45 of any hour between 7 and 7. You should be able to walk on to a bus. It’s a tourist coach and looks different. The Bus Stand is where the Maharagama road (from Nugegoda) forks in two).
Where are all the commenters who predicted the sky would fall if buses were permitted on the expressway? No comment??
Well, I didn’t say that the sky would fall, but I did say that unless they gave the route to one company, it would be as disastrous as every other road.
It’s not disastrous. The buses just smell a bit funny. They’re available all the time though, so I’m fine.
Thanks for stepping up, David. There were many who did say the sky would fall.
The issue highlights a key aspect of public transport regulation: time tables. The number of operators is a red herring. As long as time tables are set, slots assigned, and the assignments enforced, it does not matter whether there is one operator or twenty. It is when time tables are violated that all the dysfunctional behavior emerges.
Right now only Maharagama-Galle and Galle-Maharagama are offered. The other options of Ambalangoda-Maharagama, Kalutara-Galle etc. should come on stream gradually. Maintaining time table discipline will be a little more complicated when that happens.
What we should work on is taking the good practices on the Expressway to the other principal routes as well.
that’s one of the questions on the survey above, they’re at least asking where the service should start from. I’ve made the image bigger so you can see.
“Bus drivers drive like sociopaths at worst, assholes at best.”
And you are OK with them driving at 100 kmph? Or is this a different breed of bus drivers who drive on the Expressway?
Private buses will never be regulated properly. The fact that these particular buses will be plying on a smooth straight road is not going to suddenly make the Govt. act the part of Mr Tough Guy Regulator. You Indi are reading way too much into a feedback form.
The Government does not give a shit when the operators use their monopoly position to shit all over the common people. All this is very nice in theory, but destined to failure in the Miracle of Asia.
I’ve taken a private bus and they drive fine on the Expressway. They can charge a fair rate so they don’t compete on volume or speed.
@Indi:
No photos of the bus it self?
The feedback form you have shown appears to be printed in English, were there ones in Sinhala and Tamil?
Btw an easy way to figure out if it was a private or a SLTB might be to look for the SLTB logo no? :P
@Rohan:
Don’t you think it is a bit too early to comment? I agree that one problem is with the time tables; However all the major bus terminals (Pettah, Galle, Kandy and some smaller ones as Nugegoda, Moratuwa for example) do operate on a time table. I disagree that time tables are one of the problems.
Why I say that it is too early to comment is because of the status of “luxury/smi-luxury” intercity buses. When they came in more than a decade back (probably close to two decades), they were hot and posh. The problem is that the same buses are still on the road (ok not literally, but the seats are worn out, AC is not working etc.). It is a problem about the quality of your ride.
Sorry, in the above comment the first para addressed to Rohan should read as :
“Don’t you think it is a bit too early to comment? I agree that one problem is with the time tables; However all the major bus terminals (Pettah, Galle, Kandy and some smaller ones as Nugegoda, Moratuwa for example) do operate on a time table. Therefore I disagree that time tables are the only problem.“
It’s not just timetables. It’s largely the competition between buses for a route. For example, you could have regularly timed buses running from Colombo to Ambalangoda on the Colombo-Galle Road; while you have a just as well-timed set of buses running from Bentota to Galle, using the same route. It’s unlikely that you’d have the Colombo-Ambalangoda timetable coordinated with the Bentota-Galle timetable, so between Bentota and Ambalangoda you have an overlap resulting in buses racing each other. That’s just one example. Factor in several of these routes plus an intercity route and it gets insane.
As long as buses are just running from Colombo to Galle and back along the E01, it won’t matter how many companies there are as long as the timetables are followed. But once you have Colombo-Galle buses stopping off at Bentota, Hikkaduwa, etc on the way, and have shorter run buses going between say Beruwela and Ambalangoda, you’e gonna have buses racing each other to get somewhere first and pick up the passengers from a town, regardless of what time they leave the town again.
Time tables exist, but they are not enforced. There is no articulation between govt and private buses. Those supposed to enforce do not do so because of bribes, extortion or threats. Strict adherence to time tables means that buses should not only leave at specific times, but they should reach bus stops at specified times, and most importantly, the destination at the pre-announced tine. Not easy in LK circumstances. If you are really interested, please check how the first and last buses run. These are generally low revenue runs. But they are important for those who depend on buses. In most routes, there is no certainty. You’ll have them 75% of the time (estimate; illustrative only). But the 25% is randomly distributed which is very bad in terms of confidence in the service.
I do not deny that excessive licensing and small size of operators are problems. But neither is a monopoly, public or private. Those who took buses in the 1970s before private buses were allowed will recall how bad things were.
Bad quality due to monopoly can be avoided by making the bus company reapply for their license each year. If quality’s dropped, the route will be awarded to someone else. The problems with timetable enforcement will only increase once the expressway is extended to Hambantota, Katunayake, and beyond.
Making the operator apply every year will only increase the opportunities for bribery and corruption.
Imagine. You invest in a good quality bus. You cannot get returns on the investment in one year. But the license runs out after one year. What would you do with the bus if you’re not allowed to run it for lack of a license?
What would be the incentives to demand a bribe for the renewal? What would be the incentive to offer a bribe? They would surely over-ride concerns about quality. Instead of investing in quality, you’d be better off investing in whoever the decision maker is.
But will there be a point of racing if busses are not allowed to load/unload other than the starting point and end destination. There are no bus stops in the express way itself. So no point of racing. There are no people to be picked up for the winner. There is no loss for the looser. So why race.
But from the starting point of journey to entry point of express way you still have conditions for racing. For example if two busses start from Maharagama the one who get to kottawa first will have passengers to pick up (Assuming that bus has seats to spare).
I think the market (ie, me) can judge quality better than the government. If there are competing buses I can choose quality or price (within limits), and they can adapt to me and the market in general.
C’mon, Rohan, if corruption is the overriding factor, what’s to guarantee that timetables or schedules will be adhered to, or that numbers of buses will be limited to demands? What’s to stop a corrupt official allowing twice as many buses to run simply because he’s bribed to do so? We need to suggest ideas with the plan to simultaneously combat corruption, not allow for it.
As for the renewable contract, that’s the best way to keep operators honest. What makes you think that the contract isn’t renewable after a year? If the operator is running a quality service, his contract is renewed; if not, a better competitor gets it. Isn’t that what we do with our governments too? Giving multiple operators long-term or permanent contracts won’t guarantee quality if they provide alternate advantages to the passengers (such as speed).
As far as I know, timetables govern how late a bus can arrive at a bus stand, not how early, just like flight schedules. it will be anyway impossible to ensure a bus arrives on the dot and not a minute before or after; for a bus operator, arriving thirty seconds before the competition is quite good enough if there are overlapping routes.
And Indi, I didn’t say that only the government decides quality. You’ve already told us that they were giving out customer service forms, so clearly you opinion is already being taken note of.
Which is why I said “As long as buses are just running from Colombo to Galle and back along the E01, it won’t matter how many companies there are as long as the timetables are followed. But once you have Colombo-Galle buses stopping off at Bentota, Hikkaduwa, etc on the way, and have shorter run buses going between say Beruwela and Ambalangoda, you’e gonna have buses racing each other to get somewhere first and pick up the passengers from a town, regardless of what time they leave the town again.”
What happens once the E01 is extended to Hambantota and Katunayake? Do you still expect that there will be no stops on the way?
Another way to prevent the psycho racing is to make the speed limit for buses something like 80-kmph and police them ferociously.
There still won’t be stops on the highway. They’d have to get off at an exit and get back on.
They also can’t race because I think they’ve started clocking the speed based on what time you enter and when you exit, which is on the ticket. I think you just get an automatic fine.
Yes, I didn’t mean they’d stop ON the highway when I said they’d stop on the way. But it’s logical to assume that a bus traveling from Galle to Trinco on an expressway system will have some stops on the way.
I was copped for speeding in January (http://blacklightarrow.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/speeding-on-the-southern-expressway/ ) and they were using speed guns. Again, clocking your entry and exit times is OK as long as the trip is just Colombo to Galle or the other way, but becomes impractical once the distances and traffic increases as you would know having traveled on North American highways — you could have been doing 180 -kmph on the open road and then slow down in traffic to 80-kmph, lowering your average speed