Peshawar suffers due to traffic jams

PESHAWAR: As many as 78,000 vehicles including 39,642 auto-rickshaws plying the roads in the provincial capital without permits are one of the major reasons for the worst traffic jams in the city.

Every government and traffic police administration has miserably failed to find any solution to the everyday traffic jams in Peshawar, more so after the construction work was started on the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project.

No new roads were constructed in the provincial capital in recent years. The last one was the Ring Road constructed over 25 years back. After the blockade of roads in all parts of the city due to slow construction work on BRT, Ring Road proved to be the lone alternate route for tens of thousands of commuters to move from one part of Peshawar to another.

Apart from other issues, the illegal vehicles plying roads in the city without permits have added to the miseries of tens of thousands of Peshawarites when they move from homes to offices, schools, trade centres and other places in the city. Majority of the vehicles do not obtain any fitness certificate.

According to data collected by a government department, there are 106,521 vehicles transporting passengers from one part of Peshawar to another but 78,900 of these buses, cars, coaches and auto-rickshaws do not have permits.

"A total of 61,000 auto-rickshaws are plying the city roads and the drivers of most of them never care about traffic rules. The biggest problem is that 39,642 of these rickshaws do not have permits to pick and drop passengers in the city," a source told The News. He added that roughly 21,000 rickshaws have permits in Peshawar.

"Besides, there are 31,755 tricycles, the Qingqis, being used as passenger vehicles in almost all the urban and suburban parts of the provincial capital. Not a single of these tricycles has a permit or even registration," the source said. He added that majority of the drivers of almost 93,000 rickshaws and Qingqis don't have driving licences.

The source pointed out that out of around 12,400 cabs only 5,475 have permits to carry passengers. "Around 6,925 of these taxis are without permits to transport people. As many as 38 out of over 350 wagons, 78 of 360 Mazda buses, 119 of around 150 buses plying Bara Road, 227 of around 270 coaches and 198 of over 230 pickups being used as passenger vehicles are running without permits," the source added. The traffic police authorities admitted the vehicles without permits are one of the major reasons for the traffic jams in the provincial capital. "The traffic wardens have been doing their best to ensure smooth flow of traffic on the city roads despite the work on the BRT. There are thousands of vehicles plying the city roads without permits, causing road blockade and other traffic-related issues," Riaz Ahmad, Superintendent of Police Traffic Peshawar, told The News.

The official added the departments concerned should keep a check on the vehicles plying without permission as it was a burden on the city roads. "Only those public transport vehicles should be allowed to move within the city that are fit and have obtained permits from the departments concerned," said Riaz Ahmad.