TransPeshawar, the operator of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Peshawar has rejected the false and baseless allegations made regarding receiving the Gold Standard ranking/award.

In a formal statement issued by TransPeshawar here on Sunday: it is stated that the Gold designation received by BRT Peshawar is based on the international evaluation tools prepared to assess the Bus rapid Transit System on international best practices. All the BRTs around the globe are evaluated on the same set tools of evaluation by the technical committee of the BRT Standard.

The Technical Committee of BRT Standard comprises of globally renowned organizations and experts of BRT, which are World Bank, UN Habitat, UNEP, BARR Foundation, Rockefeller foundation, and Climate works foundation, GIZ, Despacio, ICCT, and ADB etc. After independent evaluation by the experts, the statuses of the BRTs are updated on the World BRT ranking, the only platform in the world to do so. The presence of Peshawar BRT was the highest score of 97 out of 100. The authenticity of the award speaks for itself.

The “Urban Transport pre-feasibility study for Peshawar” is completed in 2014; the organizations involved were City Development Initiative for Asia, Urban Policy Unit P& DD, KPK, ADB and Infrastructure Project Development Facility. The Project Preparatory and Technical Assistance (PPTA) which include preliminary design and detail feasibility were awarded to Desain Mobilitas Indonesia (DESMOBI). The study was completed in 2016 and DESMOBI provided preliminary design and feasibility study. The DESMOBI get inputs from Pakistani firm Think Transportation and USA based firm BRT Planning International and other individuals. The detailed design was prepared by the Mott Macdonald Pakistan and Mott Macdonald London.

The Institute for Transportation Development Policy (ITDP) was never awarded with any feasibility or design contracts. Top BRT consultants around the world are linked with ITDP for knowledge sharing and policy development, similar is the case with DESMOBI which is associated with ITDP Indonesia.

Association with world leading organizations increases credibility and reliability. The involvement of ITDP directly or indirectly into a project does not qualify any project for Gold Standard rating.

The ITDP has active offices in India and Indonesia and they are involved in many projects of BRT, but none of the projects in these regions ever get gold standard ranking. The transparency of the BRT global ranking can be seen by the fact that any individual or organization can access and submit any system score on set criteria to committee and then committee assesses and re-evaluate and rank the system accordingly. The ranking system rank all the world class BRTs of the world independently by experts with no influence, and the system is open and transparent, and involved 15 top credible and most trusted organization around the world.

TransPeshawar rejects all the false and baseless allegations made by a few to create speculations. The BRT Peshawar ranked as Gold Standard based on its services to all sectors of society, number of routes, convenient services to specially determined people, and promoting clean technology and non motorized traffic.

This report was first published in Business Recorder on February 21, 2022.