ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank has started work on the feasibility study of Rapid Bus Transit for Islamabad to examine whether the project would be feasible technically or financially.

"A four-member team of the ADB has reached Islamabad and launched work on the feasibility study," said a senior CDA official.

He said the feasibility study will be completed by September this year that would follow launch of the bus service for the federal capital.

He said the experts' team has already given a detailed presentation to the CDA Board that had given them go-ahead for work.

The ADB had offered the CDA to assist in the study of the public interest project that would cost around Rs40 million.

Earlier, the CDA was all set to purchase buses for the project but later, it perceived that launching such mega project without feasibility could lead to a failure.

The CDA had also invited private parties to provide buses to the CDA but later, the process was suspended.

The CDA had discussed the project with Infrastructure Development Board that had advised prior feasibility of the project that followed the signing of agreement Cities Development Initiative for Asia of ADB for feasibility study.

Under the agreement, the CDA would pay 20 percent of feasibility cost in form of facilitation to the ADB experts those are visiting Pakistan.

The ADB team will also interact with the Islamabad Capital Territory administration to know about the regulations of transport in Islamabad to consider them in their study.

Recently, the CDA had approved Islamabad Transport Company that would be allocated huge piece of land in sector I-11 that would be used by the company for commercial purposes to generate revenue.

All of the bus stops in Islamabad would be put on company's disposal for their use for branding.

The company's revenue would be used to subsidize the public transport in Islamabad.

Moreover, the company will also have the powers to regulate transport services in the federal capital.

As per CDA plan, every bus would be available after every five minutes during peak hours and 15 minutes in off-peak hours, adding the movement of all buses would be time-bound.

The official said the CDA has planned to install intelligent lighting system across the capital to adjust timing of traffic signals with that of buses because as per international standards, there is no red signal for RBT buses.

He said as per survey conducted by the National Transport Research Centre, around 23,688 people travel from Faizabad to Pak Secretariat, 18,517 from Faizabad to sector G-10, 17,310 from I-10 to Secretariat and 8,270 from Abpara to Bhara Kahu.