The Sri Lanka Transport Board ( Sinhala: ශ්‍රී ලංකා ගමනාගමන මණ්ඩලය ''Shri Lanka Gamanāgamana Mandalaya'')(formerly: Ceylon Transport Board, CTB) is a bus service provider in Sri Lanka. Between 1958 and 1978, the Ceylon Transport Board (CTB) was the

nationalised Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to p ...

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 Limited liability is a legal status in which a person's financial liability is limited to a fixed sum, most commonly the value of a person's investment in a corporation, company or partnership. If a company that provides limited liability to it ...

omnibus companies by the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

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 (CTB). The inaugural trip of the CTB took the Prime Minister and the Transport and Works Minister

Maithripala Senanayake Maithripala Senanayake (7 July 1916 – 12 July 1998) was a Sri Lankan politician and Governor of the North-Central province. He first studied at St. Joseph's College, Anuradhapura then at St. John's Jaffna, where he attained a mastery i ...

on a maroon luxury Mercedes-Benz bus imported from

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

. 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

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 (J-Biz), 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

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

es, some of which is operated by SLTB. The ''Central Bus Stand'' in

Pettah Pettah may refer to: * Pettah of Ahmednagar, a fortified town outside the Fort of Ahmednagar stormed by British soldiers in 1803 during Second Anglo-Maratha War * Pettah, Colombo, a neighborhood in Colombo, Sri Lanka located east of the City centr ...

functions as the primary hub for bus transport in Colombo. The road network in Colombo consists of radial links (or arterial routes), 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.http://www.gobrt.org/BRTinAsia.pdf BRT Planned or Under Construction in Asia Normal Services Most of the bus services covered by the SLTB are general services. These general services can be classified into two main categories. That is, 1. Services with inter-provincial destinations 2. Services with internal provincial destinations. 1. Services with inter-provincial destinations. 1. Services with inter-provincial destinations. # 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 kms intercity or rural long distance services. However, inter-provincial services are also available along suburban and rural provincial boundaries with shorter destinations. 100 kms More than inter-provincial general services often run as limited stops. The SLTB has the longest inter-provincial service in Kataragama - Jaffna. The Kataragama (administrative boundary belongs to the Uva Province) depot in the Southern Province can also be pointed out as the only SLTB depot covering all the provinces of Sri Lanka. 2. Services with internal provincial destinations. Most of the internal provincial services are active in the Western, Southern, Northern, Eastern, North Western, Central, Uva, Sabaragamuwa and North Central Provinces. 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 (rural) destinations in the province (Kalutara, Gampaha). Internal provincial services with the longest destinations operate in the Eastern Province and the Northern Province. Internal provincial long distance services also operate as limited stops.

Intercity routes

SLTB also serves many intercity routes. These routes connect many of the major population centres in the country. As of January 2012, SLTB is the only bus operator on the Southern Expressway. It uses modern

Lanka Ashok Leyland Ashok Leyland is an Indian multinational automotive manufacturer, headquartered in Chennai. It is owned by the Hinduja Group. It was founded in 1948 as Ashok Motors and became Ashok Leyland in the year 1955. Ashok Leyland is the second-most ...

buses on the expressway to connect Galle with

Maharagama Maharagama is an outer suburb of Colombo, Sri Lanka on the High-Level (A4) Road about from the centre of the commercial capital. It developed rapidly in the 1980s as a dormitory suburb. Governed by the Maharagama Urban Council, the town possess ...

. The buses operate every two hours. As of 2013, the SLTB has started operating on the Katunayake Expressway providing access for people from

Negombo Negombo (, ) is a major city in Sri Lanka, situated on the west coast and at the mouth of the Negombo Lagoon, in Western Province, from Colombo via Colombo - Katunayake Expressway. Negombo is one of the major commercial hubs in the country an ...

Katunayake Katunayake ( si, කටුනායක, ta, கட்டுநாயகம்), is a suburb of Negombo city in Western Province, Sri Lanka. It is the site of Bandaranaike International Airport or Colombo Airport, the primary international air g ...

Puttalam Puttalam ( si, පුත්තලම, translit=Puttalama; ta, புத்தளம், translit=Puttaḷam) is the largest town in Puttalam District, North Western Province, Sri Lanka. Puttalam is the administrative capital of the Puttalam Di ...

, etc. to maintain access within 20 minutes.

Fleet

Most of the fleet consists of buses from

Ashok Leyland Ashok Leyland is an Indian multinational automotive manufacturer, headquartered in Chennai. It is owned by the Hinduja Group. It was founded in 1948 as Ashok Motors and became Ashok Leyland in the year 1955. Ashok Leyland is the second-most ...

Dennis Dennis or Denis is a first or last name from the Greco-Roman name Dionysius, via one of the Christian saints named Dionysius. The name came from Dionysus, the Greek god of ecstatic states, particularly those produced by wine, which is somet ...

Volvo The Volvo Group ( sv, Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distributio ...

Yutong Yutong (officially Zhengzhou Yutong Group Co., Ltd.) is a Chinese manufacturer of commercial vehicles, especially electric buses, headquartered in Zhengzhou, Henan. Yutong also covers areas of construction machinery, real estate, and other inve ...

, Tata,

Mitsubishi The is a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries. Founded by Yatarō Iwasaki in 1870, the Mitsubishi Group historically descended from the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, a unified company which existed from 1870 ...

and Isuzu. The SLTB is currently expanding its fleet, by ordering new buses from

. The buses ordered have modern facilities, including 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 on costs. 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 save money.

Logo

The Logo was originally a blue oval with the words 'CTB' and the equivalents in Sinhala and

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...

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 returns to the 1970s symbols, but with 'SLTB' instead of 'CTB' in

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...

lettering, with 'Sri' added to the Sinhala script and no change in the Tamil script.

Transit Competitors

SLTB buses compete with private buses throughout the country, as well as with rail services by

Sri Lanka Railways The Sri Lanka Railway Department (more commonly known as Sri Lanka Railways (SLR)) ( Sinhala: ශ්‍රී ලංකා දුම්රිය සේවය ''Śrī Laṃkā Dumriya Sēvaya''; Tamil: இலங்கை புகையிரத ...

Integration issues

Sri Lanka Transport Board has not integrated its services with other modes of transport, such as rail. Unlike transport systems in some other countries, Sri Lanka does not have a streamline ticket system between road and rail transport. Buses do not provide dedicated feeder-bus services to the railways, resulting in

commuter rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are con ...

and buses acting as isolated systems in relation to each other, which creates a loss in efficiency. ADB Sector Paper. Sri Lanka Country Assistance Program Evaluation: Transport Sector. August 2007

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.sltb.lk/home.php, Sri Lanka Transport Board official website
SLTB page at Ministry of Transport website
* ttp://www.skylineaviation.co.uk/buses/lanka.html ''Classic Buses Profiles: PUBLIC TRANSPORT IN SRI LANKA'', text and pictures 1958 establishments in Ceylon Bus companies of Sri Lanka Nationalised companies in Sri Lanka State owned commercial corporations of Sri Lanka