STAKEHOLDERS PERCEPTION OF BUS PRIORITY LANES (BPL) IN COLOMBO, SRI LANKA.

Bus priority lane (BPL) has been a widely adopted and successful strategy in the planning context to attract passengers towards the public transportation. In the implementation of bus priority lane, it is required to fulfill the basic infrastructure of space allocation for the priority lane, the number of buses available for the circulation, sufficient bus halts and stations, access to bus priority lane and other relevant amenities at the bus halts. However, it is essentially required to identify the stakeholder perception in regard to the implementation of the bus priority lane since the service needs to be utilized from the public in order to harness the value of the investment. To carry out the research study, two dominant and congested roads in Colombo district were selected where the use of bus mode share has been recorded as 47% from the overall mode share. Nine factors were identified to carry out the study among a sample of 455 passengers selected from the stratified sampling method. The responses were analyzed in comparison to the international case studies. The conclusion of the study emphasizes (80%) that the left side entrances to the bus priority lane create conflicts at intersections and to users. Further, it can be concluded that the vehicle blockage at intersections and physical segregation in the bus priority lane are important factors to be considered in its implementation.