Bus owners detail hefty fare increases
They announced an impending rise in bus fares on Wednesday…but declined to detail the specific prices until today. As News 5’s Janelle Chanona discovered, for passengers, the news wasn’t pretty.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
This morning twelve of the country’s bus operators presented the new fares that will come into effect on Monday, April fifteenth. From the list of figures, these are what the new prices will be:
We begin with journeys beginning in Belize City. To get to Belmopan on a regular bus, passengers will be asked to pay $5.00. This is an increase of $1.50 or 43%.
To reach San Ignacio, passengers will have to shell out three dollars more because the old rate of $5.50 is now $8.50, an increase of almost 55%.
The ticket to Benque has reached $9.50, up 58% from its former $6.00 price tag.
For the northern bus runs, the prices are up but not as steeply. To get to Orange Walk from Belize City, it will now cost you $5.50, a dollar or 22% percent more than the old rate.
To get to Corozal is an extra $2.00 up 28% to $9.00 as opposed to the usual $7.00.
While regular passengers may view the changes as punishing price hikes, the bus operators have adamantly claimed that this is not an increase at all, but merely an adjustment.
Roger Tun, T-Line Bus Co.
“Basically I will be very brief by saying that it’s not an increase it’s just a matter of adjusting prices. Prices that have been there ten years, but as a consequence of competition, we had to lower our prices to see that we make some money. But, we have realised that in the absence of solidarity, coming together, charging the required fees, we will not be able to provide a service, and I think we have all agreed to that.”
But the bombshell of the day turned out to be this claim…
Adolfo Quan, Novelos Bus Co.
“We’ve kind of levelled it off so Belize to Belmopan will now be $5.00. So in that case, it will be perceived that we’ve gone up 1.50. The rest is basically the dollar extra.”
So what is, this funny math? According to the industry’s leaders, this is the scenario: bus companies had set certain fares for every journey. For argument’s sake, we’ll take the Belize City, Belmopan run. According to one of the route operators, Novelo’s, the set fare for a regular run is $4.00 but…and this is where it gets interesting…passengers had decided they were only paying $3.50. So the logic is that by setting the new rate at $5.00, passengers will pay what the bus company hopes will be more than the existing rate and bus owners will be satisfied with that. No, doesn’t make much sense to us either.
Bus owner Tony Novelo says that isn’t the only oddity in the industry that they are trying to correct.
Tony Novelo, Novelos Bus Co.
“Bus lines in the west brought severe competition that we went to fares all the way down to fifty cents. And we are talking right now at this present moment, Novelo’s bus line is operating moving students from Unitedville to Benque Viejo for fifty cents. Now ladies and gentlemen, this company has been subsidising this for years now.”
So today in a rare unified front, the bus operators announced those practices, coupled with recent national and world events, have forced the increases across the country. They say skyrocketing insurance rates and dramatic and consistent fuel increases have forced their hand.
Tony Novelo
“We had too many bus operators, too many bus permits and people really benefit from this competition. Unfortunately, inflation has brought about some common grounds, whereby the bus operation cannot be continued at this same structure.”
Adolfo Quan
“What we’ve really done is looked at the mileage and compared them with the other sectors of the country and try to level it off. That’s what happened in the west. That’s why…I might be wrong in what I said about only one dollar in certain areas, in the rest of the country on the west, but the major destinations will show a larger percentage I guess because of that. But the main thing is that mile for mile, the distances and the cost for the same distances are going to be the same country-wide approximately.”
Tony Novelo
“Insurance rates impossible that they are not going down, so those are not premature. We’re looking at insurance rates going up higher as a matter of fact. Fuel might go up and down. They have not gone down here in Belize and probably it will not go down, because remember from Venezuela to here or from the U.S., they’re closer there. We are not really jumping ahead on prices because these prices existed from 1990.”
But while that might all be true, by all accounts, it’s no secret that most of the bus owners are in serious financial trouble and they desperately need the extra cash.
Thomas Chell, Chell Bus Service
“Right now I am owner of Chell’s Bus Service and I have seen that we are going drastically down the drain and if we don’t come to pass this increment, in the near future we won’t exist. We won’t provide that competition like what we gave it. Government put a cost on road service permit for a thousand dollars, we have to paint busses and our fleet are deteriorating.”
David Novelo, Northern Transport Ltd.
“I will come here today and I will be quite honest, we’re having on the Western Highway per week and average of breakdown of about eight buses. Now you tell me…this is why the company now in solidarity is making the necessary steps to enhance, and this is why explained to you today that we are on a process of getting our equipment, refreshing our equipment, that’s why we’re in the process of modernising this industry.”
So do increased rates mean better service? After all, the cost of maintenance should be down as Belize’s roads have improved drastically over the last decade. But such common sense was not so common this morning.
Tony Novelo
“When you have good highways, you increase in speed, we make up time, so you have more wear and tear on tyres.”
But as for tangible benefits, there are plans to build bus stops along all major highways, provide additional buses from points of origin to cut down on passengers fighting to get a seat, and a program is in the pipelines to provide free service to B.D.F. and police officers in uniform.
But for now, the public service union is already stating their objection to the new prices.
Margaret Ventura, President, P.S.U.
“They cannot pay that increase to get to work. So if you could consider sir that there are some public officers getting six hundred dollars a month, seven hundred dollars a month, and if they will pay almost three hundred dollars a month with the increase to travel to work, they cannot possibly survive.
Public officers’ salary is 16% behind. We cannot buffer any increase from any company. Worse, what we saw today, while it is good for the companies, in terms of transportation industry coming together, this is now viewed as a reinforced monopoly. And I’m saying this wearing the hat as the President of the Public Service Union and as an official of CAPU, that it is now reinforcing the monopoly position, which can only result in adverse effects to the consumer, to the person who has to use the service.”
In case you’re wondering where the Transport Department is in all of this, while we unable to get comment from Commissioner of Transport Glenn Arthurs, fares are supposed to be regulated. The bus owners say they are bound by law to charge twelve cents per mile for regular buses and twenty cents a mile for air-conditioned units. According to the owners, these new prices are well within those boundaries.
David Novelo
“It is imperative for us to get our act together so at the end of the day our commuters know they have an properly structured systematic process of transportation. That I believe if we all realise that is what the country has been yearning for, asking for and we are now fully committed, fully pledged to provide those services.”
Reporting for News 5, I am Janelle Chanona.
For the record, the price per gallon of diesel fuel used by busses has recently risen to a record high of $4.53. This represents a 24% increase from the relatively stable level of $3.65, which prevailed for several years prior to September eleventh. A look at today’s international news indicates that crude oil prices are falling rapidly in the wake of the change of government in Venezuela. This should translate into lower prices at the pump for both bus operators and the rest of Belize’s motor vehicle owners.
