Where are the buses?

With the exception of 2007, when the Pakistani automotive industry manufactured more than 1700 buses, the sector has not ever manufactured more than 1500 buses in a year since the commercial vehicles production started in 1999. Extracting numbers from Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA), the yearly average for the past 18 years is less than a 1000 units of production, though the trend has been upward until FY17.

Surprisingly so, the drop in bus production during FY18 so far has been profound—production fell by 38 percent in 9MFY18 year on year. On monthly average, 56 buses were produced during the current fiscal year against 95 last years. In a population of 200 million, of which 36 percent is urban, where overall car penetration is significantly low (14 for every 1000 people), why is bus production dropping?

Buses are mostly used in urban centers for intercity transportation. Then there is intercity travel and perhaps a much smaller share in total bus usage belongs to shuttles services at schools, universities, hospitals, airports, and industrial areas. Though across cities; decades old, worn-out buses are still found on the roads, which perhaps filled some of the demand for public transportation, a new demand for buses has been created as road infrastructure is developing connecting cities to other cities and towns. Meanwhile, at subsidized rates, the bus rapid transit (BRT) networks currently operational in Lahore and Islamabad are also catering to a large portion of the burgeoning demand. Is the current supply enough? Or is production of buses being replaced by imports?

Let’s look at some statistics: According to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), by 2016, over 226,000 buses were registered while nearly 151,000 buses were on the roads of the country. Since 2000, this number has increased by 64,000 buses. Between 2011 and 2016, an average of 4,550 buses was added annually to the supply on roads. However, the average production during this period was less than 650 buses per annum. This points toward an influx of bus imports. But unfortunately, it is not possible to determine how many Completely Built Unit (CBU) units were imported for buses, neither in quantity nor in value. The PBS provides import numbers for buses and trucks together, which is not a meaningful indicator for the purpose of this story.

Meanwhile, the Economic Survey of Pakistan where a lot of this data is collated from difference sources including PBS, Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Communication gives import numbers under two heads: ‘bus etc. chassis’ and ‘buses and trolley buses’. These two indicators are not meaningful either. If we add the annual production units of buses (source: PAMA) with import of buses and trolley buses (source: Economic Survey), the total number is not reflecting in the additional ‘buses on roads’ every year (See graph). It remains unclear whether the annual figure of ‘buses on roads’ is the number of buses operational and active during the year or does it count the number of buses each time they are in transit, which would be a distorted figure.

The question whether local production is being displaced by imports cannot be sufficiently answered. But consider these numbers with the backdrop that several new bus services have been introduced across the country like Bilal travels, Silk line, Faisal Movers, Shuja Motors, Foton in Punjab, and ZhongTong Intercity Bus by Dysin. These came after Daewoo’s success, which today has 400 buses in its fleet that cover 60 destinations. Meanwhile, the Lahore Transport Company has added nearly 500 buses to the intercity network from Ankai, Foton, and Zongtong.

Punjab government is also setting up multi-modal intercity bus terminals connecting Lahore to other cities which would cater to 170,000 passengers every day. Other private bus terminals like Al-Halal Travels have also been set up recently from Faisalabad.

It would be remiss not to mention that the Islamabad Metrobus has 68 vehicles on the network provided by SAIC Motor Corporation Limited (SAIC) and Sweden-based Volvo Bus Company. But according to reports, the motorway is marred by underutilization. The Lahore Metrobus on the other hand has 64 buses on the track, while the Multan Metrobus has 47 buses. Together, the daily ridership of these BRTs should be between 300,000 to 400,000 passengers. And let’s not forget, that almost all of these buses are imported.

Among upcoming projects are the Karachi and Peshawar BRTs. According to Sindh Public Procurement Regulatory Authority, at least 120 buses will be procured (likely imported) for the Karachi BRT, which will carry a minimum of 100 passengers each. Meanwhile, Lahore’s rail based Orange line is also under construction which is estimated to cater to 250,000 passengers.

Despite having all this patchy information, without official numbers, the total bus supply cannot be estimated. But with all these interventions in the works, it is possible that production of buses will decline further after these BRTs are launched—new demand may not be created as fast. However, as infrastructure develops, old fleets are refurbished and connectivity grows by bringing far-flung towns closer, this certainly isn’t the end of the bus industry, only a downtime.