Passengers queue to board a Jamaica Urban Transit Company bus in the Half-Way Tree bus park recently. - RICARDO MAKYN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
THE EDITOR, Sir:
THE JUTC appreciates The Daily Gleaner editorial of August 26 that correctly re-states several facts that the JUTC has sought to have understood by taxpayers. The editorial said that despite a fare increase, the company's fares remain low. A significant percentage of our passengers who paid zone fares would now be experiencing a 25 per cent increase from $40 to $50.
Another significant percentage of our passengers still benefit from the $15 concessionary fare that remained unchanged.
COMPANY SOLVENCY
The editorial sought to establish that current management practices are keeping the company from solvency. As the public mass transit provider for the capital, the JUTC is no different from public clinics, post offices and police stations: public facilities that are integral to make a modern society function. To suggest that the JUTC can run on an economic fare would automatically exclude our concessionary fare travellers that include schoolchildren, the disabled, the elderly, and the most vulnerable in the socio-economic standings. An economic fare has never been a goal of the JUTC.
On the matter of the JUTC Public Sector Discount Programme, the editorial suggests that the special 30 per cent off discount package is of little value. Our experience last week does not validate this. The overwhelming response on the first day that the concession was offered was sustained throughout the week as more than 400 public sector workers are finding the programme that is offered through the JUTC Smart Card to be of great value.
BATCH PROCESSING
To meet this demand we are keeping our three public sector locations every day this week at the Ministry of Transport and Works, the Ministry of Water and Housing and the JUTC lay-by in Spanish Town. We are facilitating batch
re-loading of cards, and encourage more public sector offices to do
this and so reduce the number of persons who have to come in for their discount.
The editorial then paraphrased a discussion between a Gleaner reporter and one of our managers to say that a fare increase will lead to a fall in ridership, and from this fall in ridership the JUTC will reduce its service. The article also named a middle manager in The Gleaner's internationally circulated editorial; an unfair inclusion of a company functionary who was acting in a normal capacity. Three issues were collapsed in the paraphrase: effect of fare increase, ridership, and continuous route scrutiny for operational efficiency. I give an overview of the some of the issues in the next paragraph.
The JUTC experience is that within a few months of a fare increase, passengers adjust to that change and return to their regular travelling patterns, or establish new ones. We are heartened that some employers have started to call us to help them promote the JUTC Smart Card as a budgeting tool for employees as it reduces the need to carry cash on the bus, and the Smart Card gives a ten per cent discount on every ride.
Passenger loads have been adversely affected by competition, and the JUTC has appreciated renewed efforts by the relevant authorities to remove unfair competition from routes. Like most international mass transit companies, the JUTC has to operate in a competitive market and adopt a ubiquitous good customer service ethos among employees, training of staff to improve competencies as well as direct marketing efforts to earn its share of passengers.
The company does constant reviews of routes as Greater Kingston grows. New communities and business hubs are being established in a dynamic environment. Changes are made after a review of a route's passenger loads over a period of time is done in the context of these and other social factors. We have occasional route changes, including cuts, as well as the introduction of new express and peak services. For example, we have started to sensitise our passengers on Route 43 that goes from Great House Circle in Havendale to Cross Roads via Knutsford Blvd that it will be removed next month. The company can more effectively serve those passengers through other routes. We will also be expanding our Sunday transfer service to include 16A, allowing us to save fuel and consolidate passengers going through Half-Way-Tree to get to Cross Roads and Downtown. The 97 Express was introduced in May following results from a review that showed that there was high demand from Nine Miles Bull Bay to Downtown on weekdays.
The JUTC operates in the public domain and we expect continuous scrutiny from our passengers and the general public. We take pride in the fact that we connect employers to employees every day, resulting in a large part of our more than one million passenger trips per week across the KMTR.
I am, etc.,
Gwyneth Harold
Manager, Marketing and Public Affairs
