New buses used as effective advertisers

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Pic: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/images/13_2_2004_Anchor%20Picture.jpg

KARACHI: The outdoor advertising business has taken the new turn after the arrival of new imported buses under the provincial government’s urban transport scheme (UTS) as advertisers are using these buses to promote their products.

“Outdoor advertising has multi-dimensional outputs not only generating revenues for the private sector and for the government as well and it is also a good source of information for the general public,” said an official of the outdoor advertising department of the city government.

The current trend of adverting on the sides of buses started from by June last year after a Swedish firm introduced new imported buses in the city for public transport. The official said advertising on one bus costs between Rs 500,000 to Rs 600,000 annually, with the major share going to the bus operators, while the printing and pasting cost of vinyl sheets ranges from Rs 500 to Rs 600 per square feet. The advertising charges for the ‘Metro’ bus service is between Rs 75,000 to Rs 100,000 per bus per annum due to the smaller size.

“This industry is improving as the business is getting positive response from both the bus operators and the commercial firms like Sony, Lipton, Tapal, Shaan and National foods and others,” said Munawwar Hasan of Vital Links, a bus advertising firm.

“Advertisement on these new imported and locally assembled large buses is not only attractive and it is easier to convince the companies to advertise.” He said the flex sheets used to prepare the ads are imported from a number of countries including USA, Europe and China while its printing is done in Karachi.

The trend of advertising on buses started from the Metro buses in Karachi about three years ago, but the sudden boom in business has caught the official agencies off guard. The new boom has occurred due to the success of UTS jointly launched by the Sindh government and the Karachi’s city government.

There are about 100 public transport buses in Karachi having different kinds of advertising messages but about 40 buses of them mostly the new arriving larger ones have been fully painted.

Some 78 new buses are already plying in the city under the scheme and 250 more are expected to arrive within next few months. Presently, there are no regulations set about the size of advertisements on buses and very few advertisers pay official charges to the city government.

Since some of the operators have completely covered their vehicles with the ads, the transport and communication department (TCD) of the city government is formulating a policy, restricting advertising at the rear portion of the buses. “The original colour of bus and the name of the company operating the bus service cannot be hidden behind the advertisement,” said Muhammad Ather, DO Public Transport.

Besides, the outdoor advertisement department of the city government has recently started to bill these bus operators and advertisers with notices to pay official charges, which are Rs 50 per square feet annually. After the success of advertising at local route buses in major cities of the country, it is expected that Pakistan Railways will also allow advertising on its bogies, an official said. —Kalbe Ali
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_13-2-2004_pg5_10

On a related note: For the residents of ISB, there is a nerw bus service in the offing which will go by the name of EVO bus service. they should start working soon. The buses they have imported are quite luxurious, much better than VARAN, and this new service will compete with the current mini-vans etc on their routes. Good news for the commuters. Also having a good quality public transport should project a better image of the city to foreigners.

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ChthonicPowers ji, any idea how much is the fare for an average person? And most importantly, what's the major difference b/w the new imported buses and the old ones? Are the new buses have air-condition installed or not, and what about the seating capacity? Are they environment friendly? Do they consume diesel or gas/CNG? Would appreciate all the info.

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The avg. fare that i saw was Rs.11/- but quite a few numbers on the proposal were off the mark, so i dont know if thats the true value. I’d say it’ll have to be very competitive with other vehicles on the routes and VARAN specifically. The owners of the bus service specifically mentioned that they wanted to get a piece of the pie VARAN is having. So look for fares to be very competitive with VARAN.

The old ones that are plying in Islamabad and other parts really do stink. They’re old and dangerous. The EVO buses are imported from China and are very luxurious. Much more so than even VARAN, which itself is fairly reasonable for public transport. I know this because one of my fellow internees personally inspected the buses himself.

EVO buses will have air-conditioned sleeper versions but I am not sure if they will be used on local routes. More likely they’are going to ply them LHR-ISB and other such routes.

I’ll check the seating capacity for you on Monday but I suspect it was 70. Dont quote me on that just yet. I’ll re-check on monday. What i do know is that the seats in these buses are much better than VARAN. My fellow internee mentioned the seats specifically. :slight_smile:

And the best news is that the buses will use CNG. So no more black smoke oozing from the rear end of these buses. :k:

Overall, from the pics that they showed us, these buses looked much more comfy than anything on the city routes right now. :k:

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ChthonicPowers ji, thank you so much for the information, really appreciate it. You said something about pictures. Any possibility you can post those pictures for everybody to see, if not thats fine.

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Karachi is in desperate need of more CNG buses, cause it can become a real death trap when it is real busy.