MAXI FARES UNECONOMIC

Trinidad and Tobago’s relatively low maxi and conventional taxi fares, while undoubtedly customer friendly, are uneconomic and are a major contributory factor with respect to today’s horrific fatal accident rate. In turn, the equally uneconomic fares which the Public Transport Service Corporation [PTSC] is allowed to charge passengers have impacted negatively on the Corporation’s ability to maintain an adequate supply of spares for, as well as service its buses, and are responsible for the frequent breakdowns and sidelining of the Corporation’s units. Today, many of the Corporation’s units are either “off the road and in need of major overhaul” or have been cannibalised to provide spares urgently needed to keep other buses on the road.

The holding down of bus fares on the various PTSC routes had been a deliberate policy in 1965 (and following) of the People’s National Movement Administration led by late Prime Minister, Dr Eric Williams, when the PTSC was created. The policy had been clearly designed to subsidise the cost of travelling by the nation’s workforce. This had the effect of dissuading workers from insisting that their trade unions factor the cost of transport into salary and wage demands. The determination by Government to have low cost transport in Trinidad and Tobago, whether by buses, maxi taxis or conventional taxis carries with it both a minus and a plus. Speeding on the road by some maxi and other taxi drivers, as well as repeated cutting in and cutting out and overtaking on the wrong side of the road in an effort by drivers to make as many trips as possible in a working day has led to scores of accidents, many of them fatal.

Drivers of vehicles, who do not own them, are required by the owners to pay a minimum daily rate, and because they are also responsible for seeing about gasolene, all too often have to make more trips, because of the low fares, than they would have had to had they been the owners. And while this does not apply to all of the drivers, nonetheless could lead to many of the drivers hustling on the road with little or no rest in between. And even as the passengers benefit from not only the low fares, but the availability of transport at late hours, because of drivers working “overtime”, there is a risk involved. In the late 1970s Dr. Williams having determined that bus fares should continue to be kept low realised that the bus runout position of the Public Transport Service Corporation was steadily dropping. The factors had comprised the manner in which they were operated as well as serviced along with the tardiness both in the placing and obtaining of needed spares.

The decision was taken to follow the lead of Caracas, Venezuela and allow for the introduction of privately operated mini-buses in an effort to meet the expanding demand for commuter transport without the responsibility of the State having to bear the cost. This, however, would have been in clear violation of the Transport Service Act No. 11 of 1965 under which the Public Transport Service Coporation had been legislated as the sole operator of the country’s bus service. Williams, not to be undaunted, decided that instead of referring to them as mini-buses he would have them described as maxi-taxis. It was a feat of legerdemain as to the best of my knowledge, the Transport Service Act No. 11 of 1965 was never repealed nor amended to allow for the operation of mini-buses, called by whatever name, to operate in this country. It was a facility extended by the Government which, initially, limited the number of vehicles to be licensed as maxi-taxis.

Initially, such a service was ideal if only because it served to complement the service being offered by the PTSC and to relieve the Government, in the long term, of the pressure of constantly having to replace buses at a rate which would allow for the return to and maintaining of a bus runout position in excess of 300 units. Government’s introduction of the maxi-taxi along with its later decision to increase the number of vehicles licensed as conventional taxis, while it afforded an availability and choice of transport never before known in Trinidad and Tobago, would create severe problems both for the private operators and the travelling public.

Meanwhile, the proposed introduction of a light rail service to Trinidad and Tobago would mean a diminishing need for the volume of private commuter transport operators in the country today. It has to be understood, too, that the existence of literally hundreds of PH cars, that is private cars operating as taxis, have added to the ills created by a surfeit of commuter vehicles. Government is faced with the same problem as was the then colonial Government in the 1930s when there were hordes of omnibus operators, particularly in Trinidad, which would force it to introduce legislation in September, 1938 allotting concessions to 13 omnibus operators.

The question is does it have the political will not only to limit the number of maxi and conventional taxis operating on the nation’s roads, and to whittle down the number through attrition, as well as limit the number of private cars, again via attrition. In addition, does it have the political will to introduce a system of maxi taxi concessions, along specified routes, to be operated by maxi taxi cooperatives employing existing Maxi Associations as the basis for these cooperatives. This would allow the maxi taxi cooperatives, once the limiting of vehicles and policy of attrition should be introduced, eventually to introduce more or less commercial fare structures. A welcome spin off would be the setting of increased incomes for maxi taxi operators, who do not own vehicles, through a carefully worked out minimum wage applicable to this set of workers. Once the system is properly in operation with sensible scheduling it would mean increased incomes as well for the owners. It would mean the elimination of hustling on the roads and of that of drivers wearily plying their trade long after they should have turned in their ignition keys and retired for the day.