By Petulia Clarke, Staff Reporter 
IN A bid to earn extra revenue as well as get passengers to retain ticket stubs, the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) has signed a one-year $6 million deal with four companies to advertise their products on bus ticket stubs.
The company will also launch shortly a 'lucky ticket campaign' where in partnership with the same companies, commuters will use ticket numbers in a computer draw on a weekly basis to receive prizes. JUTC's information officer, Errol Lee, said yesterday that the company has been "fighting a losing battle" with commuters who refuse to hold on to stubs - their only insurance that they were on any bus at a particular time.
"We were wasting that space and because it wasn't attractive either, most commuters didn't even take a second glance at it," Mr. Lee said.
The JUTC has also had money problems, and was recently declared technically insolvent, according to a review done by management consulting firm KPMG Peat Marwick. The report said that the company was losing in excess of $3 million per day.
"The initial package involves four advertisers," Mr. Lee said. They are Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)/Pizza Hut, Best Dressed Chicken and Fish, Burger King and the RJR Communications Group.
"It's an established form of advertising in developed countries. We order our tickets in one-year shipments. For the next 12 months these four advertisers will have their products on these tickets exclusively," Mr. Lee explained.
He also said that the five Swedish consultants, who were brought in to assess the JUTC after the KPMG report, should be presenting their findings to Transport and Works Minister, Robert Pickersgill, soon.
Among the other findings of the KPMG review were that since 1998, annual projections of passenger volumes had fallen 45 per cent per annum and on a bus-by-bus basis total ridership had fallen by 33 per cent; that weaknesses in the recruitment process had resulted in the employment of persons in positions for which they were not qualified and that cash-flow statements were not prepared and reported on to the board, as part of monthly financial statements.
The review, which covered the period July 1998 to February 2002, was done at the request of the company.
