PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government has suspended the Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service temporarily for conducting a technical review of the project after three fire incidents.
BRT Spokesperson, Muhammad Omair said the bus service was temporarily suspended for conducting a technical review of the project. “The safety of the passengers is the institute’s topmost priority,” Omair added.
The spokesperson further said that a detailed review of the buses will be conducted by the company that manufactured them, adding that an investigation was also being carried out to determine why two buses of the project had caught fire earlier.
He said that the decision had been taken in the larger interest of Peshawar’s citizens. “BRT service will be restored after a complete investigation of the fire incident,” he added.
Earlier, a bus running in the dedicated corridor of the Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) service caught fire in Peshawar. All passengers on board were immediately evacuated and no casualties were reported.
Members of Rescue 1122 later told the media that they received a call about a fire that erupted on a BRT bus. They rushed to the Gulbahar station of the BRT, evacuated passengers and extinguished the fire.
Another bus of the BRT project — traveling on Hayatabad’s feeder routes — caught fire today (Wednesday), making it the fifth one in total to have broken down while the third to have erupted into flames.
According to rescue officials, passengers inside the bus were taken out of the vehicle without any harm coming to them.
Before this incident, another BRT bus caught fire near Gulbahar Station, local media had earlier reported. According to eyewitnesses, the bus caught fire just as soon as it arrived at the station.