All 104 newly imported Metro buses begin carrying passengers on Tuesday across seven routes in the Western Province, Hiru News reported on Monday. The launch is to be held under the patronage of the President.
Lanka Metro Transit chairman S.M.U.P. Thilakaratne said all operational arrangements were complete. He told NewsFirst the company is separately planning to extend the service to provinces outside Colombo from next year — the first indication of a timetable for taking the network beyond the Western Province.
Five new, two already running
The two accounts describe the same expansion from different ends, and they reconcile exactly. NewsFirst says services start on five additional routes, “expanding its operations beyond the two routes that are currently in service.” Hiru gives the post-launch total as seven. Five plus two is seven; there is no discrepancy between the figures.
That framing matters for reading the 104-bus number. The fleet is not 104 buses on five new corridors — it is the full fleet redistributed across a seven-route network, most of which opens on the same day.
| Route | Corridor |
|---|---|
| CM01 | Makumbura – Colombo Fort via Pettah |
| CM02 | Millennium City – Colombo Fort |
| CM03 | Kadawatha – Makumbura |
| CM04 | Dematagoda – Panadura |
| CM05 | Battaramulla – Ekala |
| CM06 | Kollupitiya Circular Route |
| CM08 | Kesbewa – Pettah |
CM 07 is again absent. The numbering has skipped it in every list published since July, and no outlet has explained the gap.
Two corridors have shifted since the maps were published
Monday’s list differs from the route maps Transport Minister Bimal Rathnayake released on 17 September in two places.
CM 08’s western terminus is given as Kesbewa, not Kahathuduwa. The September map named Kahathuduwa; Monday’s list and the ministry’s original July route set both say Kesbewa. Two filings against one puts Kesbewa on the better-supported side, and the September map now looks like the outlier rather than a change of plan.
CM 01 is described as running to Colombo Fort via Pettah, where the September map showed it terminating at Pettah. The July set had listed a Makumbura–Colombo Fort pair, so this reads as a restoration rather than an extension. Neither outlet notes either change.
What the operator says it is for
Thilakaratne put the objective in terms of private cars rather than bus passengers: the aim is to reduce the number of vehicles entering Colombo, “particularly those carrying only a single passenger.” He said many commuters drive to and from offices alone, and that moving some of them onto scheduled services is the company’s main expectation.
The launch is paired with enforcement. Police tightened enforcement on Colombo’s bus priority lanes in the run-up to the rollout, which gives the new services a road-space advantage the private operators on the same corridors do not have.
Still not published
Fares, service frequencies and timetables remain unpublished — the same gap flagged when the route maps appeared eleven days ago. Neither outlet says how many of the 104 buses are assigned to each route, and neither gives a headway.
Without those figures the network still cannot be compared against the private buses already working these roads, which is the comparison that determines whether a commuter switches. Neither report says whether all seven routes open simultaneously on Tuesday or whether the five new ones phase in.
