Vientiane bus shelters to be modernised
Vientiane bus shelters to be modernised
Amajor design and advertising agency in Laos plans to invest US$500,000 to modernise bus shelters in Vientiane after conducting a research on the possible benefits of the investment project.
BlueGrass Design Group announced last week that the design and advertising company would begin construction and renovation of 75 bus shelters around Vientiane soon, hoping the upgraded facilities will be able to shelter the capital commuters in 2016.
The new bus shelters will be fully equipped with a public Wi-Fi service and GPS locators to offer commuters a more accurate arrival time of buses, the company said as quoted in its media release.
“Our goal is not just to provide shelters for commuters in Vientiane,” said Principal of BlueGrass Design Group Praseuth Banchongphakdy. “We want to deliver shelters commuters can benefit from in as many ways possible.”
The company signed a 10-year contract for bus shelter management with the Vientiane City State Bus Enterprise on March 28, 2014, and has been working on research and development of a roll-out plan set for 2016.
The c ompany spent the last two years working on various aspects of upgrading bus shelters in Vientiane.
In addition to researching and sourcing different shelters available, the company has placed some criteria for the new shelters to meet, including suitable design to provide commuters shelter from rain and sun.
Other criteria are well-lit designs to provide safe spaces for citizens at night and creating free Wi-Fi zones for the community plus equipping the shelters with a GPS servi ce to sync with the black-boxes provided by JICA to track bus location and provide more accurate arrival times.
The company has been cooperating with the Vientiane City State Bus Enterprise to analyse the suitability of existing shelter locations and if moving them would serve the community's n eeds better.
“We have spent a lot of time learning from other countries how they developed, trained and deployed maintenance teams to keep the shelters in good condition for the public,” the company said.
“We have since also taken the best elements we have learned to develop our own maintenance programme that we will de ploy once the shelters are installed.”
BlueGrass has also been working with Planet Online to provide 4G internet and Wi-Fi services at the shelters, and with representatives of JICA to ensure the arrival time system is compatible with the GPS black box system installed in buses.
According to BlueGrass, the first phase of the project will cost about US$400,000 to purchase, ship and install the shelters.
Together with maintenance costs for the first year, equipment for connectivity will cost an additional US$100,000, bringing the total for 2016 to approximately US$500,000.
Upon completion of Phase I, BlueGrass will b egin roll out plans for Phase II in 2017 to complete the installation of the remaining shelters for Vientiane Capital.
