Sri Lanka Transport Board
The Sri Lanka Transport Board is a bus service provider in Sri Lanka.
Between 1958 and 1978, the Ceylon Transport Board was the nationalised enterprise which handled all public bus transport in Sri Lanka. At its peak, it was the largest omnibus company in the world — with about 7,000 buses and over 50,000 employees. With privatization in 1979, it underwent a period of decline.
First broken up into several regional boards, then into several companies, it was finally reconstituted as the Sri Lanka Transport Board in 2005.
In 2016, the number of buses in the fleet was 7769, of which 6178 were in operation. In the same year, SLTB had a total of 32,640 employees.
History
The first motor omnibus in Sri Lanka was imported in 1907 and bus transport began in Sri Lanka as an owner-operated service. There was no regulation, so when more than one bus operated on a single route, there was a scramble for the load. By the mid-1930s, malpractices in pursuit of maximum profit began to compromise safety and comfort. The setting up of the limited liability omnibus companies by the British around 1940 was the first meaningful step in regularising public passenger transport in the country.The Ratnam Survey in 1948, the Sansoni Survey in 1954 and the Jayaratna Perera Survey in 1956 studied the bus services in Sri Lanka and all recommended that the companies should be nationalised.
The history of Sri Lanka Transport Board goes back to 1 January 1958; at the time known as the Ceylon Transport Board. The inaugural trip of the CTB took the Prime Minister and the Transport and Works Minister Maithripala Senanayake on a maroon luxury Mercedes-Benz bus imported from Germany. The bus is still owned by the Nittambuwa Bus Depot.
At its peak, it was the largest omnibus company in the world — with about 7,000 buses and over 50,000 employees. With privatization in 1979, it underwent a period of decline. The creation of a single nationalised entity made possible long-distance operations and running buses on a large number of rural routes.
First broken up into several regional boards, then into several companies, it was finally reconstituted as the Sri Lanka Transport Board in 2005. The move received bipartisan support in Parliament. It was hailed by the Joint Business Forum, which welcomed the revival of the CTB: this was one of the rare occasions on which the business community said a state bus service was better than privatised ventures.
Services
SLTB serves both urban and rural routes. In many rural areas, it provides services in unprofitable areas that would be unattractive to private operators.Urban routes
Colombo has an extensive public transport system based on buses, some of which is operated by SLTB. The Central Bus Stand in Pettah functions as the primary hub for bus transport in Colombo.The road network in Colombo consists of radial links, which link the city centre and district centres, and orbital links, which intersect the arterial routes; most bus routes run along the radial links without the benefit of dedicated bus lanes owing to the high volume of traffic at peak times. A BRT system for Colombo has been proposed, but has yet to be implemented.
Intercity routes
SLTB also serves many intercity routes. As of January 2012, SLTB is the only bus operator on the Southern Expressway. It uses modern Lanka Ashok Leyland buses on the expressway to connect Galle with Maharagama every two hours. As of 2013, the SLTB has started operating on the Katunayake Expressway providing access for people from Negombo, Katunayake, Puttalam, etc.These intercity routes can be classified into two main categories:
Inter-provincial services
Inter-provincial services are mainly concentrated in the commercial capital of Colombo. Secondly, it is mostly active in Kandy, Kurunegala and other district cities. In addition, more inter-provincial services are concentrated in several other suburbs such as Panadura, Kataragama and Maharagama.
Inter-provincial bus services often start in one city and extend to another urban or rural destination. Most inter-provincial services are Over 100 km intercity or rural long-distance services. However, inter-provincial services are also available along suburban and rural provincial boundaries with shorter destinations. 100 km More than inter-provincial general services often run as limited stops. The SLTB has the longest inter-provincial service in Kataragama - Jaffna. The Kataragama depot in the Southern Province can also be pointed out as the only SLTB depot covering all the provinces of Sri Lanka.
Intra-provincial services
The commercial capital of Colombo is mainly centered on the internal services of the Western Province. These include urban services that extend to other cities within the Colombo District, as well as medium-distance intercity services to other urban destinations in the province. Internal provincial services with the longest routes operate in the Eastern and the Northern Provinces. Internal provincial long-distance services also operate as limited stops.
Fleet
Most of the fleet consists of buses from Ashok Leyland, Dennis, Volvo, Yutong, Tata Motors, Mitsubishi and Isuzu.As of 2011, SLTB is expanding its fleet, by ordering new buses from Volvo with a low-floor design and air-conditioning. In July 2011, trial runs began in Colombo to gauge passengers' response to the new buses.
Livery
Most SLTB buses have a red livery and are easily recognisable.Past liveries
The CTB originally painted its buses red and blue. The second-hand London Transport buses, which were the backbone of the fleet, just needed to be half-painted in blue, saving money. When aluminium bus bodies became the norm, large areas of the surface were left unpainted, with just red front and back and blue strips down the side, in order to further save money.Logo
The Logo was originally a blue oval with CTB and its equivalents in Sinhala and Tamil painted on it in red. From 1970 this was replaced by an oval with a lion rampant or on field azure.The present SLTB logo is the same, except has 'SLTB' instead of 'CTB' in Roman lettering, with 'Sri' added to the Sinhala script and no change in the Tamil script.