By Imesh Ranasinghe The Western Region Light Railway Transit (LRT) is a public-private partnership (PPP) project adopted by the Government of Sri Lanka to address the increasing traffic congestion in the Colombo metropolitan region. Delhi in India and Bangkok in Thailand are the best examples of cities in Asia which solved their traffic problems through LRT projects. However, with the termination of the Japanese-funded LRT project and the current economic crisis faced by Sri Lanka, the dream for a LRT remains impossible. JICA-funded LRT The LRT was part of the Urban Transport Master Plan which came out in 2014, which proposed the development of roads, mono-railway, and other ways of easing up traffic in and around Colombo. In 2016, the former Government under President Maithripala Sirisena requested financing assistance from Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) for the LRT project. Following the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the project, a loan agreement was signed between JICA and the Sri Lankan Government for an amount of Japanese yen 200 billion ($ 1.85 billion) in March 2019. The loan provided under the Special Terms for Economic Partnership carries interest rates of 0.1% per annum for civil works and equipment cost as well as 0.01% per annum for engineering services cost, with a 40-year repayment period. The Japanese soft loan was obtained to construct a 15.7-km-long elevated LRT from Malabe to Colombo Fort with 16 stations, which was said would reduce the one-way travelling time to 30 minutes. However, the project was terminated by incumbent President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in September 2020, citing it was “very costly and not the appropriate cost-effective transport solution for the urban Colombo transportation infrastructure”. The Red, Blue, Green, and Purple Lines According to the feasibility studies conducted, the Western Region LRT will operate three lines: Red, Blue, and Green. The 32.4-km-long Red Line will run from Ragama to Kirulapone via Colombo Fort, with one-way travel time of 53.2 minutes; the 7-km-long Green Line will run from Kelaniya to Moratuwa via Piliyandala and Narahenpita with one-way travel time of 48.2 minutes; the 21.5-km-long Blue Line will run from Hunupitiya to Kottawa via Pannipitiya and Thalawathugoda with one-way travel time of 38.7 minutes. However, the feasibility study is yet to be done on the proposed 32-km-long Purple Line, which will run from Port City through Pettah, Maradana, Borella, Rajagiriya, and Battaramulla to Malabe, from where one branch will end in Kaduwela and the other in Athurugiriya. According to the Transport Development Project Report issued by the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing in August 2020, the Red, Green, and Blue Lines will cost about $ 4.179 and take four years for construction. Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, Western Region Transport Development Project (WRTDP) Deputy Project Director P. Dissanayake said these lines, which will be constructed based on the build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) method, received 17 foreign bidders following the Expression of Interest (EOI) called by the Ministry of Megapolis and Western Development in 2017. Accordingly, the projects will have a concession period of 30 years. The alternative Dr. Senarath Dayathilake, whose work was nominated 10 times for the Grawemeyer Award in Psychology and has extended his research to fields such as neuroscience and physics, said a properly organised super-luxury bus service network will be a good alternative for the proposed LRT project. Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, Dr. Dayathilake said it would be a huge benefit for the country if a network of super-luxury buses is put up in the same routes covered by the Western Region LRT project. “The people will have a psychological effect if a LRT project is implemented, as people will like to see such development projects in the country, but even though it has such an effect, I doubt whether it will be a success,” he said. Among the issues not addressed by the LRT project is the distance between the LRT stations and workplaces or homes, since offices and homes are not located close to LRT stations similar to what countries like Singapore have done. He said that traffic will be created in routes between the stations and workplaces or homes. The feasibility studies of the project have not addressed this issue with proper plans, he said, adding: “The only solution is, there should be public transport, a three-wheel or a cab in which they will have to invest to cover that ground, which will only create another traffic congestion.” Due to this, he said after some time, people will not see this as a useful solution to traffic and will return to using buses or private transport. Super-luxury bus service network The plan by Dr. Dayathilake is somewhat similar to the city bus service that was implemented earlier this year, but with more organisation and improvements. The plan is to deploy 6,000 super-luxury 28-seater buses based on a network covering the areas covered by the LRT project, where people will be able to check the times of buses arriving from their homes or offices similar to what the city bus service has adopted, but more successfully. The bus service could be made a 24-hour service by deploying more buses during peak hours and fewer buses during off-peak hours. According to the Transport Development Project Report, 3,350,991 passengers in 888,215 vehicles travelled to the Colombo metropolitan region in 2019. Over 50% of these vehicles constituted motorbikes and three-wheelers while the average passengers per vehicle was 1.3 and 2.5, respectively. If the said super-luxury bus service network is to be a success by 90%, the number of these vehicles entering Colombo on a daily basis can be reduced by 740,000, possibly leading the Government to save about $ 3.23 billion worth of fuel in a year. The above calculation is made through data that was made available by the Social Impact Assessment (SIA) report of the Western Region LRT project that came out in 2019. According to the report, vehicle owners spend about Rs 8,133.00 on vehicle fuel per month. Attracting people and reducing traffic The plan devised by Dr. Dayathilaka proposes a pricing system similar to the electronic road pricing system adopted by Sweden for Stockholm; this system will charge a fee from private vehicles entering Colombo in order to encourage them to use the bus service. Charging a higher fee at peak hours and a lower fee at off-peak hours, the fee could be charged by scanning a QR code assigned to each vehicle – linked to a bank account or card – when entering Colombo, since having expressway-style toll booths will consume time and create traffic. “Through this, we will discourage private vehicles from entering the city. On the other hand, the Government will earn revenue,” he said. The electronic road pricing system, which was first implemented in 2007 in Stockholm, Sweden, removed about a million vehicles from the road during the first two years while earning a daily income of $ 300,000. “If 100,000 super-luxury vehicles enter Colombo daily and if Rs. 500 is charged from them at peak hours, $ 0.45 billion could be earned as revenue to the government,” he said. Also, the plan includes the construction of about 1,000 air-conditioned bus stops to attract people using private vehicles such as bikes to public transport. He said that through this plan, three-wheel drivers will stop getting long-distance hires but will get short distance hires from lanes where residences and offices are located to the main road and where bus stops are located, which will as a result reduce the number of three-wheels in the main roads. Also, the private and state-owned buses that are replaced by this bus network could be diverted to other areas outside the bus network, reducing even more traffic on the roads. Costs and benefits Considering the cost of the LRT project, this proposed plan will only take about 2% of that entire cost. Explaining the cost, he said if 6,000 28-seater Chinese super-luxury buses could be bought at around $ 35,000, it will cost about $ 0.21 billion to bring them into Sri Lanka, while it will cost around $ 100-200 million to build about 1,000 air-conditioned bus stops, prepare the network for the buses, and set the database for the road pricing system. He said the bus fare would be slightly higher than the normal bus price; the LRT has even proposed a ticket price between the normal bus fare and the fare taken by air-conditioned buses, which is double the normal price. According to Dr. Dayathilaka, the Government can earn about $ 6.73 billion annually from the fair income of these 6,000 buses, and it would nearly save 2.2 billion hours of people per year. This is due to the increased speed, Dr. Dayathilake said, adding that this is what he hopes to achieve on the road as an outcome of the entire project. The Transport Development Project Report further states the average speed of vehicles in Colombo was 10 kmph due to traffic congestion in the year 2018. The plan by Dayathilake will increase the speed of the road and bus network to 35 kmph, if the vehicles on the road are to decrease as mentioned above. “Since 6,000 buses travel in a network, the traffic injunctions could be reduced by more than 90% while only the super-luxury vehicles would be travelling on the road,” he added. Therefore, he said that with the bus service network with an average speed of 35 kmph, more trips can be achieved, which can contribute to carrying about 1,000 passengers per day by each bus. Through this, 80% of the 3.3 million people who enter Colombo can be covered and new buses can be added. While the Red, Blue, and Green Lines, according to the Transport Development Project Report, can carry 47,588 Passengers per hour per direction by 2025, upon the completion of the project, the number of passengers that can travel in 24 hours in both directions amounts to 2,284,224, which well short of the 2019 figure of 3,350,991 passengers travelling to Colombo. Moreover, he said the project can be implemented in less than six months if the required fund is available, with less construction material such as sand, cement, and stones as well as man hours required in comparison to the construction of the LRT for four years. Taking into account the bus network, pricing system on vehicles, and saving of fuel, he said the government can earn a revenue of about $ 10 billion annually and by the time the LRT is implemented, the government can earn $ 40 billion in those four years. Further, he said the net profits which will go to other countries from the LRT will be a huge loss for the GDP. Dr. Dayathilake said that with the decrease of vehicles on the road, air pollution caused by pollutants emitted from vehicles will also reduce by a significant amount. Several research studies carried out by the University of Moratuwa, along with few other institutions, revealed that about 60% of air pollution in Sri Lanka is caused by vehicles. According to the Department of Motor Traffic (DMT), the number of vehicles registered in the country by the end of 2020 has exceeded eight million. A considerable portion of these vehicles are older than 10 years. It has also been identified that the lack of proper maintenance of such old vehicles leads to poisonous gas emissions.