JUTC route cuts a breach of its licence - Phillips

Opposition spokesman on transport, Mikael Phillips, says the decision by the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) to abandon 23 routes represents a major breach of the company’s exclusive licence under the Public Passenger Transport (Kingston Metropolitan Transport Region (KMTR)) Act.

In a statement Friday morning, Phillips said the 23 routes account for more than 25 per cent of those in the KMTR, and their removal amounts to an abdication of the company’s responsibility to adequately provide service.

“It is now clear that the Government of Jamaica, and the Minister of Transport in particular, has decided to take a wrecking ball to the JUTC, smashing all hopes of a reliable and efficient public transport service in the capital city,” he said.

He is questioning whether the Minister, the JUTC, and the Transport Authority were abandoning the routes due to a lack of effective regulatory control, or whether it was an admission that the company lacked the seating capacity to provide efficient service.

Phillips also noted that, at the same time the routes are being cut, the JUTC has expanded service into six rural routes already licensed to private operators.

He said the transport minister "has a duty to clarify whether these are part of a new policy direction or simply piecemeal actions with the potential to devastate the sector."

Phillips argued that converting city bus routes into taxi routes is a retrograde step and a setback for the more than half a million transit-dependent persons in the KMTR.

"This includes children, students, pensioners, the elderly and persons with disabilities, who are entitled to concessionary fares. Furthermore, the lack of adequate road infrastructure and taxi parking will only worsen traffic congestion and increase transit times in the city," he stated.

Phillips asserted that a proper plan was urgently needed for the JUTC to fulfil its obligations and to provide a more certain operating environment for private investors in the public transport system, while improving the performance of the Transport Authority as regulator.

Transport Minister Daryl Vaz recently announced that 11 taxi routes had been approved for conversion from hackney carriage licences to route taxi licences.

Vaz said an additional 12 routes would be opened soon.

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