The government’s Metro bus service will be extended to Jaffna and Kandy before the end of this year, Transport Minister Bimal Ratnayake said, taking the fleet beyond the Colombo region for the first time.

“We hope to launch the Metro bus service in Jaffna and Kandy by the end of this year. Metro depots will also be established in both districts,” the Minister said in remarks reported by the Daily Mirror.

Ratnayake said 121 Metro buses acquired from China and several other countries are currently going through legal procedures including registration, and should enter public service by the end of August once the paperwork is complete. Several new routes have already been identified, with details to be announced in the coming days.

A further 50 Metro buses are due from Japan before the end of the year, which the Minister said would allow the service to operate outside Colombo.

Figures that do not yet line up

The Minister’s account sits alongside a different set of numbers given by the operator two days earlier. Lanka Metro Transit chairman U.P. Thilakaratne told NewsFirst on July 31 that all 104 imported buses would enter service in September across seven Colombo-area route pairs.

The two statements differ on both fleet size — 121 against 104 — and timing, with the Minister pointing to the end of August and the operator to September. Neither the Ministry nor the company has reconciled the figures publicly. The 104 buses were sourced from FOTON International Corporation in China under an agreement signed in May and arrived at Colombo Port in late July.

Longer-term targets

Ratnayake said the government wants the Metro fleet to exceed 500 buses by 2030, and that passenger information on board will be displayed in Sinhala, Tamil and English.

The stated objective is to shift commuters out of private vehicles and onto public transport in order to reduce traffic congestion, fuel consumption and pollution.

Update (August 4): Cabinet approves 50 more low-floor buses

The Cabinet has approved the purchase of a further 50 low-floor buses to extend modern public transport into urban areas beyond Colombo, Ada Derana and the Daily Mirror reported on Tuesday. The 100 low-floor buses procured in the first stage of the Public Transport System Modernization Programme have already been imported.

The Transport, Highways and Urban Development Ministry proposed the purchase as a 50% re-order against the contract awarded on March 6, 2026 for an initial 100 low-floor buses under the Public Transport System Modernisation Programme, a mechanism permitted under government procurement guidelines. The supplier has already imported those first 100 buses.

The Ministry said the first phase of the Metro Bus Project’s expansion beyond the Colombo Metropolitan Region will cover Kandy, Galle and Jaffna, citing passenger demand and the three cities’ role as regional transport and tourism hubs. That adds Galle to the Jaffna and Kandy destinations the Minister named on August 1.

How this procurement relates to the 50 buses the Minister said were due from Japan has not been made clear. The 100 low-floor buses under the modernisation programme are a separate batch from the 104 Metro buses sourced from FOTON International in China, and from the seven low-floor buses granted by Japan that arrived at Hambantota Port in July.

Sources: Daily Mirror, Daily Mirror.