THE Transport Board continues to face stiff competition from the privately owned Public Service Vehicles (PSVs), especially where they are operating on the same routes, but the Board is endeavouring to hold its own.
So says Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Transport Board, Fabian Wharton. He was answering questions on Monday evening from Auditor General Leigh Trotman, during a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament, regarding how the Board was faring with respect to the competition posed by the PSVs, given that the buses operated by the Board run on a schedule, while the PSVs do not.
“It is a difficult situation to deal with, especially when it is the same identical route, you are correct. Because there is no secret that the private operator will wait. You know that the buses would come out at 11:30 or 12 o’clock and they would come out at 20 past and 25 past and be five minutes ahead of the bus and then they get all the passengers. Then the Board’s bus would only basically be moving seniors and the persons who would have boarded the bus in the terminal. So that is one of the challenges we have,” he indicated.
Wharton explained that those challenges are not going to go away unless a “total rationalisation” of the transport sector is undertaken. In that vein, he said the Board is working to ensure that at the time of the day when the competition is lowest, they have buses on those routes. He said that would help to get revenue from that route which may be perceived as a route which is not a good one.
“Sometimes you don’t try to fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, but you manoeuvre around the scenario you are confronted with,” he stated.
Apart from the competition on various routes, he said financing is an issue, and they have done work to reorganise the business and how the business functions. The CEO said work has also been done to improve the public perception of the Board.
“We have done a lot of work with that. We were basically very silent on social media, so we have now done a lot of work in terms of social media in terms of messaging – using GIS, using Instagram, Facebook, etc. That was one of the big areas, as well as in terms of strategically positioning the organisation and getting the messages across,” Wharton stated. (JRT)