The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

and NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

The Government is aiming to kickstart a decade-long effort to unify New Providence’s jitney system with a $530,000 pilot project to demonstrate how the scheme will work, in an effort to boost the island’s “economic efficiency and sustainability”.

The project, which is being financed by $500,000 from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), is an attempt to encourage jitney operators and franchise holders to take the next step towards reform, and overcome what appears to be entrenched stakeholder resistance.

An IDB paper, obtained by Tribune Business, reveals that little progress towards practical jitney/bus industry reform has been made despite numerous reports and studies being presented to the Government, some of which date back to 1992.

“Notwithstanding the time elapsed, the Government of the Bahamas remains keenly interested in the unification of the bus service, but implementation of the plan continues to be slow and protracted following on from almost a decade of negotiations with stakeholders (Government, bus operators/franchise holders),” the IDB said.

“In an effort to maintain the momentum of negotiations, the Government has incentivised stakeholders with stipends, updated the business plan for the Unified Bus System, and valued stakeholder assets in order to promote their grouping into larger, more cost efficient cooperatives or associations.

“As a next step, the Government has now agreed with stakeholders to start the implementation of the bus unification process through a pilot demonstration initiative of the proposed Unified Bus System.”

Assessing New Providence’s public transportation industry, the IDB paper added: “Urban mobility in Nassau is facilitated by taxis and small public transportation buses called jitneys.

“The taxi fleet, while diverse and fairly large, mainly serves tourists and tends to be concentrated around the hotel areas and downtown Nassau. On the streets, taxi availability is greatly reduced outside of peak demand periods.”

As for jitneys, the IDB added that around 280 buses served the Bahamian people on 23 different routes.

“Since the early 1990s, however, the Government of the Bahamas has been aware that the bus transportation system in New Providence was plagued with issues that render the service ineffective in serving neither the needs of the travelling public nor the bus owners and operators,” the IDB said.

Referring to two reports completed in 1992 and 1994, it added: “The underlying issues with the bus service sector were the emergence of destructive competition, [and] the indiscriminate granting of franchises, resulting in too many ill-equipped operators in the system.”

The studies also found that around 50 per cent of franchise holders in the system “were just that; ‘franchise holders’, neither having the experience nor the inclination to operate a public scheduled bus”.

“Since then, this problem has been growing, and has resulted in a situation where there are multiple operators who have franchises to operate on particular routes,” the IDB said.

“There is thus no operator ‘in control’, of the overall level of service on any individual route, and operators are generally competing with each other rather than co-operating to provide a service matched to passenger demands.

“Without a lack of co-ordination amongst operators to maintain schedules, severe problems of coverage and reliability have aggravated the issue of congestion, pollution and safety as private car ownership has grown and competes for limited road space on this small island through necessity as an alternate mode of transport.

“The issue of how the bus system can be institutionally and legally structured, and aligned, with infrastructure that is articulated with pedestrianised spaces and planned urban growth urgently needs to be rationalised for safety, reliability of service and financial and economic efficiency, and for the long-term sustainability of New Providence.”

The IDB will provide technical support to the Ministry of Transport and Aviation to “operationalise and evaluate” the pilot project demonstration of the proposed unified bus system.

“I’m happy that this project is moving froward, and ultimately we want to bring order to things and stop the chaos we see on the streets now,” said Glenys Hanna-Martin, minister of transport and aviation.    

    A 2005 unification plan called for the creation of a single bus company, in which franchise holders and owner/operators will be given shares.

The plan also spoke to raising equity to capitalise the unified company through an initial public offering (IPO) of shares, and recommended that the Government be given a 20 to 30 per cent equity stake “at no cost” to it and the taxpayer.

The 790 franchises issued in 2005 were then valued at a total $12.3 million.

The IDB paper said: “Ineffective regulation has resulted in excessive competition on popular routes, and little or no co-ordination amongst them to maintain schedules, creating severe problems of coverage, reliability and safety.

“The pilot initiative also provides an opportunity to extract lessons which can translate into an improved bus service, and provide the technical basis for the optimum concession of the routes to private operators.”