Buses

From small, three wheeled tuk tuks to modern highspeed trains, Sri Lanka boasts a wide range of transportation options.

The most popular mode of transport is the bus. These buses are very different from  the buses in the western world as a lot of them are old, drive with the doors open and use the horn way too much.

Walking on the road by the buses can be really scary as they come by so fast, pressing down on the horn all the time. Even being in a smaller vehicle near a bus can make you feel a bit intimidated.

Although the buses all look old compared to what we have in the western world,  Lanka Ashok Leyland and Tata still produce their buses. Interestingly, although Lanka Ashok Leyland has Lanka in its name, it is owned by an Indian company and since 1994 they have been produced in India (up until then they was made in Sri Lanka.)

History of the SLTB

SLTB stands for Sri Lankan Transport Board and is the government bus service for Sri Lanka.

The first omnibus was brought to Sri Lanka in 1907. There was no regulation and it was run entirely by the owner. These companies were accused of not providing a comfortable service to the passengers. 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 Ceylon Transport Board was established on 1 January 1958 by President Bandaranaike and was, (at the time), the world's largest bus company with over 7,200 buses and 50,000 employees. They decided that the buses should be red with a blue egg shape for the logo as a large number of the private buses were of the South Weston Bus Company, which had red buses. This saved the country a lot of money while founding the company.

In 1964 Anil Moonesinghe of the lanka sama Samaja Party (LSSP) became Minister of Communications, in overall charge of the transport, including the CTB. he improved bus services (notably in Jaffna) and founded the Central Bus Stand in Colombo, as well as the Central Workshops in Werehara, where buses were built and repaired. At the time of its construction, the Central Workshops were the largest in South Asia and the second largest in Asia. (Article about this: http://sltbbus.blogspot.com/2014/03/central-workshop-of-ceylon-transport.html) The CTB got second hand London Buses and new buses from Fiat and OM. Moonesinghe was in the middle of negotiating with Fiat for more buses for Sri Lanka, when the UNP took power, the CTB was made into a loss making institution. The agreement with Fiat which would have enabled Sri Lanka to export buses to China was scrapped and instead, they entered into one with British Leyland. The UNP also got rid of the workers councils.

When the government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike took power, Leslie Goonewardene was made Minister of Transport and the CTB workers took matters into their own hands and brought the workers councils back in. Due to the wishes of the employees of the CTB, Anil Moonesinghe was brought back as the Chairman and General Manager. He was said to have sat in wait in his car, trying to spot bad bus crews. 

When J.R. Jaerwardene came into power, he did a very bad job of  managing the CTB, introducing the Regional Transport Boards. Eventually, he just allowed private companies to operate alongside the CTB. by the 2000s, the CTB accounted for less than a quarter of the daily bus usage. People complained hugely about overloading, excessive speeds, dangerous driving and rudeness.

When Dinesh Gunawardena was made minister of Transport in 2001, he consulted Anil Moonesinghe and others abotu how the transport system should be managed. This was followed pu by a bill to set up the CTB once agan, callign it the SLTB. In July 2007, it was announced that steps had been taken to increase the SLTB fleet from 4,200 to 5,000, importing engines to put sidelined buses back into use.

As of 2019, there were over 6000 buses in the SLTB fleet. There are about 4 times as many Tata buses as there are Ashok Leylands.

Repurposed  Buses

Homes for fish!

Although the buses are kept in service for a while, they are not kept forever. There comes a time when the vehicles are too old and the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources has come up with an ingenious solution.

The Sri Lankan Transport Department holds hundreds of decomissioned buses in their depots.

The DFAR bought the old buses cheaply and lowered them into the sea near Galle. The results have been amazing. As soon as the buses were dropped, fish flocked to the old buses' bodies to use them as a home.

Due to destructive shipping practices, many habitats have been lost and the government is now using these old buses to create new habitats for the fish to live in.

Buses get turned into libraries for Sri Lankan students!

25 library buses are being used as learning centres, providing equal opportunities for students with accessible educational resources and inculcating the habit of reading.