The National Transport Commission says it will introduce a digital system to monitor passenger transport buses, with implementation expected within this year.
The commission said arrangements have been made to monitor buses across an entire journey, from the start of a trip through to its completion.
The system will track several aspects of a bus’s operation, including vehicle performance, passenger safety conditions, the conduct of drivers and conductors, vehicle speed and stopping locations.
Where the monitoring detects activity that breaches regulations, the commission said action will follow — including the issue of penalty points against the bus concerned and, in some cases, the cancellation of its operating permit.
Enforcement has been the weak link
Speed, unscheduled stops and driver conduct are long-standing complaints on Sri Lanka’s private bus routes, and the commission’s difficulty has rarely been writing the rules so much as proving a breach after the fact. A continuous digital record of where a bus stopped and how fast it was travelling changes the evidentiary position, which is what gives the penalty-point mechanism its force.
The commission did not say what technology the system will use, which operators will be covered first, who will bear the cost of fitting equipment to buses, or how the penalty-point thresholds will be set.
The announcement follows other recent moves to digitise the sector, including the online bus ticket booking service launched for long-distance routes.
NewsFirst reported the announcement; no implementation date more specific than “within this year” was given.
