INADEQUATE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION IN RURAL AREAS OF PAKISTAN

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INADEQUATE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
IN RURAL AREAS OF PAKISTAN
BSCS-2019-60
SHARJEEL AKRAM
TECHNICAL REPOPRT WRITING
COURSE: SS 100
SIR ZAMEER NAWAZ

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Table of Contents
Table of contents -----------------------------------------------------------2
Table of figures--------------------------------------------------------------3
Abstract------------------------------------------------------------------------4
Introduction------------------------------------------------------------------5
 Background-----------------------------------------5
 Purpose statement----------------------------------5
 Problem statement ---------------------------------5
Methodology -----------------------------------------------------------------6
 Questionnaire methodology------------------------6
 Interview methodology-----------------------------6
Results--------------------------------------------------------------------------7
 Quantitative results---------------------------------7
 Qualitative results-----------------------------------9
Discussion---------------------------------------------------------------------11
Recommendations----------------------------------------------------------11
Limitations--------------------------------------------------------------------12
Conclusion --------------------------------------------------------------------12
References --------------------------------------------------------------------13

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Table of Contents
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Figure 5 …………………………………………………………10
Figure 6 …………………………………………………………10
Figure 7………………………………………………………….10

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ABSTRACT
Inadequate public transportation is the most well-known problem in rural areas,
not only in Pakistan but also all around the world. This problem has been
increasing since last few years. The reasons behind inadequate public
transportation are increase in population, careless driving, unhealthy condition
of road, bad management of bus stops, expensive fares and less funding. There
are many transports in country like trains and Daewoo bus services but in this
report only local transport is discussed which is used in rural areas of Pakistan.
An amalgam of qualitative and quantitative method was used for this report. One
main question is judged in this report; what do people think and have concepts
regarding public transport?

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Introduction:
I. Background
Pakistan is an agricultural country and according to World Bank Survey Data [1] 60.3%
population of Pakistan lives in rural areas. In this era, people in rural areas are still facing
many problems like public transport, health, education, unemployment etc. People are
migrating to urban areas due to these issues. Public transport plays a vital role in
development of a country. Due to bad management and many other factors, problems in
public transport are increasing year by year. Institutes and workplaces are at long distances
in rural areas from homes and people can’t cover it without private transport but on daily
basis they also can’t afford their expenses. So people have to use public transport instead of
private transport. But due to inadequate facilities, people face many difficulties. Some years
ago, public transport was considered the best thing to travel. But now a days, people prefer
private transport just to save their time. The main factors for not using public transport are
time and money [2] (Wardman & Waters, 2001). However, query “When and how people
use public transport” is also studied by argument.
II. Purpose statement
This report is purposed to make up mind of ministry of transportation, ministry of finance
and government to get their attention to resolve the problems of inadequate public
transportation in rural areas of Pakistan and to enlighten the use of public transport in people.
III. Problem statement
Public transport is the basic need to travel from one place to another. However, there are
less facilities of public transportation in rural areas. Generally, workplaces, schools and
colleges are far away from homes in rural areas so people have to travel daily but they have
to face many difficulties to travel due to inadequate public transportation.

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Methodology:
This part of report is to tell about all the methods which were used to analyse the research
on inadequate public transportation in rural areas of Pakistan. First is questionnaire
methodology and second is interview methodology.
i. Questionnaire Methodology
Questionnaire methodology is a way to investigate in which list of certain questions
regarding report is given to people by hand or through email in google form and they fill
those forms with pen or computers. Many other ways of assembling data can be incorporated
in a questionnaire such as stated preference experiments used by (Ortuzar & Willum Sen,
1996) or critical incident technique (Flanagan, 1954; Friman, 2000).
Questionnaire forms is consisted of two types of question one open questions in which
people have to write down their own points of view, second closed questions in which they
have to answer those questions in ‘yes’, ‘No’ and ‘I don’t know’ or a scale is given to people
on which they rate. There are many scales but most significant scale is used (Bortz & Doring,
1995).
Questionnaire form is an effective way to analyse the problem of the report but all aspects
can’t be analysed in this so interview methodology is used.
Interview Methodology
Interview methodology is a way of data collection by talking to people face to face and
asked structured questions regarding inadequate public transportation in rural areas. This is
also called sampling method. There are many other sampling methods like systematic
ordered sampling, stratified sampling and cluster sampling (O ` Flaherty, 1997).
In interview methodology, people are free to answer questions according to their own point
of view regarding the issue. Two types of questions are asked from people, one is closed

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questions in which they have to give answers in ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘don’t know’, second is open
questions in which they have to give their suggestions.
Results:
Quantitative results:
Public transport is mostly dependent on road transport. The National Highway Road
maintains 12,131 kilometres of roadways [4] in Pakistan. Motorway Road covers 1,860
kilometres of roadways [5]. Road density is (total length of road divided/total area) is the
most common factor in the development of a country. The comparison between the road’s
density of Pakistan and other countries is in figure 1 graph. This shows that Pakistan’s roads
are inadequate according to area of country.
Figure 1: This shows comparison of roads with other countries [6].
One reason for inadequate public transport is unhealthy roads. Roads are the best ways to
communicate with other cities. There exist many rural areas of Pakistan where are still no
carpet roads to travel. They have to travel through mud roads to reach their destinations.
They reach very late. Their clothes become dirty on mud roads and except rickshaw,
motorbikes and cycles, long vehicles can’t travel on those roads.

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Other reason is increase in population. As population is increasing, problems of inadequate
public transport are also increasing year by year. Total population of Pakistan is 218,538,956
[7]. And the yearly growth rate is:
Figure 2: Yearly growth rate of population (1950-2019)
And with this rate, public transport is inadequate for people in rural areas. In urban areas
public transport is adequate for the people and that transport is kept in good condition. But
60.3% people are living in rural areas are having inadequate number of public vehicles. In
the morning when people of rural areas are going to their institutes and workplaces, about
100 people travel in a bus which accommodate only 50 people. And rest stand in vehicles
and hang at the back or sit on the roofs which cause accidents and lead people to death.
Figure 3: shows overloaded bus in rural areas.

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Another reason for inadequate and less usage of public transport is careless driving and too
much expensive fares. Drivers of public transport don’t drive carefully. They drive too fast
on unhealthy roads that causes accidents and people get frightened to travel through that
vehicles. Drivers do not keep their vehicles well repaired and these vehicles stop in
midways. People get late from their destination. Managers of bus stops take fares too much
that a poor person can’t afford it. A person who earns 300 daily how he can afford 100 for
his daily travelling and this causes the main problem of inadequate public transportation.
Qualitative results:
A questionnaire google form was sent to many people of different areas in Pakistan and
asked certain questions to get their own points of view.
Graph in figure 4 given below, blue is showing the percentage of people who daily travels
from their homes to workplaces.
Figure 4: This shows people travel daily from their homes to universities or workplaces.
Graph in figure 5 given below, red is showing the percentage of people who prefer private
transport over public transport.

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Figure 5: This shows people who uses public or private transport.
Graph in figure 6 given below shows that in many rural areas of Pakistan the most common
public transport is local buses and rickshaws.
Figure 6: This shows the percentage of common vehicles in local areas.
Graph in figure 7 given below shows that why people don’t use public transport. Common
reason is that these public transports takes too much expensive fare and then there is no
parking where all transport should stand and take the passengers from that parking stand to
their destinations.
Figure 7: This shows the reasons for inadequate public transportation.

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Discussion:
Inadequate public transportation is the most well-known problem in rural areas of Pakistan.
This problem is judged by many people of rural areas and got their points of view by a
google questionnaire form. And almost 10 to 12 questions were asked through which certain
things were analysed. Many students and people travel daily on public transport but they all
prefer private transport over public transport because public transport have many issues like
they charge too much expensive fares. Their drivers don’t drive safely and their vehicles are
not well repaired, number of vehicles are inadequate and many people have to wait for bus.
Many people were interviewed and asked certain questions regarding public transport in
rural areas. They travel daily for work and they can’t afford their own motorbikes. That’s
why they have to travel through public transport. They said, “Many people travel in single
vehicle and can’t even stand in bus due to rush and hang at the back side of vehicles which
causes road accidents. They also talked about drivers. They said that drivers drive their
vehicle blindly on unhealthy roads as they are in any competition with other vehicles. They
also talked about fares that drivers charge expensive fares. They also talked about
government. MNA’s get budget for roads and public transport but instead of spending on
public, they spend on their own comfort zone.
Recommendations:
The main purpose for this report is to get attention of government toward this problem.
Through survey, many recommendations were found. Government should buy more public
vehicles for rural areas. Roads should be constructed and maintained properly. Drivers
should drive safely. There should be a proper check on overloaded. And poor people should
be given facility to travel without any cost in rural areas.

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Limitations:
This study is done within certain limits. People in rural areas of each province are analysed
and an average is taken to analyse this problem in rural areas. There is not enough research
published on inadequate public transportation in rural areas on internet so it was difficult to
analyse this problem.
Conclusion:
After observing and analysing the data of questionnaire form and research on inadequate
public transportation in rural areas of Pakistan, it is concluded that with the passage of time
this problem of inadequate public transportation is increasing day by day in rural areas.
People face many difficulties. Government has to take steps to decrease to resolve this issue.
This study is primarily to observe the percentage of inadequate public transportation per
year and few reasons for this alarming problemare also described to aware people.

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References:
1- World Bank Survey: [Dec 03, 2019]
2- (Wardman & Waters: [2001] )
3- Philosopher Karl Popper’s searchlight theory [ to collect data from different method to
get the best result] [Vol 64, No.3 (July 2003) pp.465.487]
4- National Highway Authority Report [July, 2019]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Highways_of_Pakistan
5- Motorway of Pakistan report [18 Nov, 2019]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorways_of_Pakistan
6- http://nha.gov.pk/en/ [NHA report].
7- Sunday, December 15, 2019, based on Worldometers elaboration of the latest United Nations
data.( https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/pakistan-population/).