Thursday 14 / November / 2024
Muscat: Passengers travelling on Mwasalat buses will be able to purchase online tickets from next year, a senior official from Mwasalat said on Tuesday.
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Speaking to the Times of Oman, Ahmad bin Ali Al Balushi, chief executive officer of Mwasalat, said the transport company will be introducing a new system for ticket sales.
“We will be introducing online tickets with weekly and monthly prices and special fares for students and children,” he said.
He also said Mwasalat is looking to introduce free rides for people with special needs.
“Our plan is to provide a safe, accessible and reliable public transport in Oman,” he stated.
Ahmad bin Ali Al Balushi also said Muscat will be soon connected to Duqm, the service for which will be introduced in the last quarter of this year.
“We have launched all local routes in the Muscat governorate in 2016, as announced last November with the Muscat-Duqm route being an additional route,” he said.
He added that Mwasalat will manage around 150 to 200 airport taxis. “The fares for the airport taxis haven’t been decided yet. We have nothing to declare now,” he stated.
Al Balushi revealed that in the next three years, Mwasalat plans to introduce 350 public transport buses, which will be run all over the country.
“Right now, we have around 600 buses, including school and university buses.”
Mwasalat has already floated a tender for the supply of 350 buses of various types, including a large number of double-decker buses this year.
All these buses will have better security and entertainment on board as the company is seeking to install LCDs and CCTVs for all its buses. Mwasalat had transported more than 2.1 million passengers on all local routes in the governorate of Muscat, since the launch of its operations on November 22, 2015 and until the end of July 2016, with an average of 10,000 passengers using buses every day.
