Transport Minister Bimal Rathnayake has published route maps for the Lanka Metro Transit network, setting out seven services ahead of an expansion scheduled for late September, Hiru News reported.
The maps were released on the minister’s social media accounts, with geographical overviews and route-level views showing major stops and connections.
The seven services
| Route | Corridor |
|---|---|
| CM 01 | Makumbura – Pettah |
| CM 02 | Millennium City – Colombo Fort |
| CM 03 | Kadawatha – Makumbura |
| CM 04 | Dematagoda – Panadura |
| CM 05 | Battaramulla – Ekala |
| CM 06 | Kollupitiya Circular Route |
| CM 08 | Kahathuduwa – Pettah / SLIIT |
The numbering runs CM 01 to CM 08 but omits CM 07, which does not appear in the published set. Hiru News does not explain the gap, and it is not stated whether that route is held back, withdrawn or simply unannounced.
How it fits the network built so far
Two of the corridors track depot capacity already reported. CM 03 terminates at Kadawatha, where the operator took on a 172-bus fleet and depot earlier this month, and CM 05 runs to Ekala, announced in September as the network’s third depot. The routes published are broadly consistent with where the operator has put its garaging.
Three of the seven — CM 01, CM 04 and CM 08 — run into Pettah or through the Fort area, concentrating the network on the existing city-centre terminus rather than on orbital movement. CM 06 is the single exception, a Kollupitiya circular.
What is still missing
The minister gave no exact launch date for any individual route, despite the late-September framing. Ticket prices, service frequencies and detailed timetables are all absent from the material released.
That matters for a network being promoted on comfort and reliability: without headways or fares, a published corridor map cannot be compared against the private bus services already running the same roads, and passengers cannot tell whether a route is a genuine alternative or a parallel one.
Hiru News also does not say how many buses are assigned per route, whether the services are air-conditioned, or how they connect to the LMT GO tracking app already in use on the network.
