On Beirut's chaotic, car-choked streets, Lebanese student Fatima Fakih rides a shiny purple bus to university, one of a fleet rolled out by authorities to revive public transport in a country struggling to deliver basic services.

The 19-year-old says the spacious public buses are "safer, better and more comfortable", than the informal network of private buses and minivans that have long substituted for mass transport.

"I have my bus card -- I don't have to have money with me," she added, a major innovation in Lebanon, where cash is king and many private buses and minivans have no tickets at all.

Lebanon's public transport system never recovered from the devastating 1975–1990 civil war that left the country in ruins, and in the decades since, car culture has flourished.

Even before the economic crisis that began in 2019 -- plunged much of the population into poverty and sent transport costs soaring -- the country was running on empty, grappling with crumbling power, water and road infrastructure.

But public buses, now equipped with GPS tracking, have been slowly........

© Al Monitor