Bus Operators Show Upgraded Buses
The warning came at the start of the year: bus operators who do not upgrade their fleets by December thirty-first will not get their permits renewed. And most of them have heeded that warning and made the necessary adjustments. While clearly none of the buses that were on display today were new, they provided a level of comfort and met the requirements that the Transport Department laid out. News Five’s Marion Ali was on Marine Parade when the Minister of Transport, Rodwell Ferguson and his new Chief Transport Officer, Deon Gentle inspected the buses. Here’s that report.
Marion Ali, Reporting
The deadline for bus operators to upgrade their fleets is December thirty-first and, today, Transport officials inspected a few of them that were brought to Belize City. The buses from James, Gilharry, Morales and West Line were parked along Marine Parade where Minister of Transport, Rodwell Ferguson had a chance to play passenger.
Rodwell Ferguson
Rodwell Ferguson, Minister of Transport
“I sat down in two buses: the Gilharry bus and the bus for James, and the seating difference is about three to four inches in difference. So the bus gives me about 16 to 18 inches, which is very comfortable, but the James bus only gives me about maybe 12 to 13 inches. So my knees were still touching the other seat. So I’m asking now that this will be the standard size, that every bus must reach this standard in terms of the seating arrangement.”
Reporter
“Does this bus meet the standards today?
Rodwell Ferguson
“I should say yes because we asked for the bucket seats. I see them having bucket seats. One of them or two of them have air conditioning, so they are definitely meeting the standards very slowly. And we will go to work with them to make sure we can maintain it. They are not brand new buses, so we expect that break-downs will happen along the way, but we hope that we get a better service for the travelling public. Initially, I wanted buses like Floralia, but I understand their condition and I’m going to work with it.”
According to Ferguson, there are specific requirements that the buses had to meet.
Rodwell Ferguson
“We must make sure that the windows can open, open and close, so when the rain comes, you can shut the window. You’re not going to get wet while the bus is moving. Number two, the bus must have a spare tire. It must have a jack. It must have a fire extinguisher, items to make sure the bus is functional and operational – a wheel tool, so when the bus is a puncture, you have a jack to change your punctured tire.”
Leon Gentle
Ferguson says the Transport Department, headed by the new Chief Transport Officer, Leon Gentle, will also address issues like overcrowding.
Rodwell Ferguson
“Today we are going to give Mr. Metzen, the secretary of the bus owner association, the criteria. And the standards and they will have to abide by that. So even the overcrowdedness must be controlled so that we can make sure that people are comfortably seated.”
Leon Gentle
Leon Gentle, Chief Transport Officer
“We’re trying our best to ensure that we put all that we’re saying in writing, um, so that all operators are, have the same understanding, have, which might be a challenge, but at the end of the day, what we hold our standards to is, is what we have in writing. So that’s most important for us at this point. So we’ll be meeting, we’ll be having some more meetings with them to ensure that as we go along, we continue to do some inspections to help them to upgrade, to see what it is that we can do as a ministry to improve the standards.”
These were not the only adjustments that the bus operators had to take on. There were technical adjustments that had to be made, as Secretary of the Belize Bus Association, Ewart Metzgen explained.
Ewart Metzgen
Ewart Metzgen, Secretary, Belize Bus Association
One of the things when importing these newer buses, like from 2008 model buses coming up, the couch system, even the blue, new Bluebirds that you have just seen, like what James has, it has a, a def system, which, which, which controls the carbon emission that these buses Um, what that does, it reburns the fuel. It passes through another system and reburns it so you have less carbon emission. But when we bring these buses into Belize because we don’t have the fuel for these buses to run on, we’ve got to be deleting the system off the bus for it to run on the fuel we have. So, and deleting that system costs anywhere between 5, depending on who you go to. To get it deleted. So it’s defeating the purpose of the government wanting us to upgrade buses for the environment because not having the proper fuel here and we, we deleting that system, we’re still contributing to the carbon emissions in the country. These buses run on non sulfur fuel. Which, uh, we don’t have in country. And, the system, if we try to run these buses without deleting the system, we have all, all sort of breakdowns on the highway. The, the buses, they, they tend to lose power, and some electrical problems and stuff we will experience.”
Rodwell Ferguson
“For now we have, because we now have, because we have special fuel, we’re going to have to go and, I don’t know, fill a few buses or a few trucks. So that’s not an option? I don’t, at this point in time, I don’t want to give you an answer. As we progress, we’ll see how we go.”
So now that some level of investment has been made, will that translate into higher bus fares?
Ewart Metzgen,
“It’s something we’re still sitting down with the ministry to discuss because. We’re really discussing a tier system, a three tier system whereby we’ll have an economic bus, we’ll have the express and um, like a premier bus. So three, we’re working on having three different buses that people will choose which one you want to ride and each one will have a different price. So you ride the one you choose comfortable or what your pocket can afford now, so that that is something we’re in discussion with the ministry about right now. But we have not really have anything concrete on that yet. Because the investment, what we anticipated, then we’ll have to sit down and figure if the price will remain the same or it should go up.”
Metzgen said the Bus Association will be working with the operators to adjust the seating in those buses where they are too close to each other. Marion Ali for News Five.
