Not enough buses for TT

He said the PTSC has just over 340 buses and operates more than 200 of them on a daily basis in providing service on 160 routes including 100 rural routes. He said this arrangement affects the quality of the service the bus company can provide and its ability to maintain its fleet. He said the PTSC does not even have enough buses to have a proper maintenance system.

PTSC General Manager Ronald Forde highlighted an added problem in that the buses are old, an average of twelve years compared to an international benchmark of eight years and the company has about 26 different types of buses in its service, which creates nightmares for the stocking of parts and maintenance generally.

Committee member MP Rushton Paray, asked about the PTSC’s policy in dealing with the physically challenged and Deputy General Manager, Operations, Brian Juanette responded that since 2012, the PTSC had created the Eldamo service to provide transportation for its physically challenged passengers.

He said that service was established with 24 buses at various depots but even that was hard pressed to keep up with the demand. He said users are expected to call in and request to be picked up some 24 hours before they need to use the service, but the company has a number of requests and a database which it is unable to satisfy with its existing fleet.

He said that at board and management level the PTSC is looking to expand its fleet to be able to meet the needs of the physically challenged.

Gooding said all the new buses to be acquired by the PTSC will be “universal” buses, meaning that they will be fitted with the necessary equipment to transport the physically challenged.

In response to another question from Paray, Gooding admitted that the PTSC has been receiving complaints that the Eldamo buses are uncomfortable for the persons who use them and Paray said there was also the issue of security on some of these buses.

Juanette explained that when the service was launched in partnership with the Ministry of Social Development and Family Services it was the understanding that the ministry would have provided caregivers to be on the buses, but that never happened so the PTSC was using some of its own personnel, former property protection officers, to man the buses.

However, he said there were not enough of them to service all the buses. Forde added that the service is oversubscribed with a lot of people demanding service from the fleet so there is a definite need to expand it so that the differently abled could be accommodated on the normal buses which operate on the bus route.