PSV sector wants talks with minister – AOPT

If the Alliance Owners of Public Transport (AOPT) gets its way, the emerging commercial town of Warrens, St Michael will become a new turnaround hub for privately-run public service vehicles.

Chairman of the AOPT Roy Raphael said on Tuesday, this is one of the raft of issues his organisation will be discussing with the new Minister of Transport Santia Bradshaw once she settles down.

Raphael said “the vexing issue of hubs and terminals around this country” will be on the agenda with the new minister.

“Shortly, this organisation will be visiting the Warrens area because we continue to get complaints from the medical people in that area, about the loud noise coming from the PSVs,” the AOPT chair disclosed.

He said some of the complainants claim that conductors and drivers walk across the zebra crossing to try to intercept potential commuters to lure them into boarding their individual ZRs or mini-buses.

“The time has come for government to look at a hub in the Warrens area. Warrens is almost completely becoming a town and most vehicles terminate from Six Roads to Warrens and from Speightstown to Warrens. We can introduce a new route from Bridgetown directly to Warrens to have Warrens as a turnaround point,” Raphael told Barbados TODAY.

He also reported an increase in the number of claims being made by passengers against PSV operators for minor injuries allegedly sustained onboard their buses or for damaged clothing.

“We are seeing a slight increase in the number of people making injury claims against our PSVs. The association has two investigators onboard and persons who make claims need to get the information in. As you know, we don’t have a ticketing system where people can say they boarded ZR 00 and they got their shirt torn. Because we don’t have that system in place, we find that people are just claiming,” the PSV official said.

“They claim that they got onto a vehicle and their shoe hooked into something and got damaged. The insurance had to end up paying claims, which also increased our premiums,” Raphael stated.

He said that as a result, his association will shortly be putting its investigators to work with the insurance companies to probe the claims before paying out any money to commuters.

He could not say what sums of money have been paid out so far.

Raphael also disclosed that a command centre will soon be set up in Black Rock, St Michael to monitor all member-PSV vehicles and taxis.

“We will be introducing a new system called Taxi Online similar to Uber where you can call a taxi and it will come immediately. We are working on that. The only reason why we have not got any further is because we had some issues related to the building, but that is being sorted out. As soon as that is completed, we should be monitoring our public service vehicles on the road,” the AOPT chair told Barbados TODAY.

A review of the licensing system for PSV is also on the cards to be discussed with Minister Bradshaw.

“The association will be seeking to ask government to review the whole licensing process for public service vehicles because there are four or five different classes of licence for public service vehicles,” Raphael said.

He identified some of them as licences to drive a coach, a ZR, taxi and a Transport Board bus.

“The association believes there should be one licence which should be known as the Public Service Vehicle Operation licence. In order to gain one, you should go through a training programme and qualify,” the PSV owner suggested.

“Too often we have people coming into the service and creating problems. That [licence review] would have to be part of the Transport Authority regulation coming forward and we are hoping that we would be part of that discussion,” he said.

Several other issues listed for discussion with the new Minister of Transport include compensation for those taxi operators who lost potential earnings after being displaced due to events in The City related to republic celebrations, proper parking for taxis in the Fairchild Street-Probyn Street area and the proposed Mass Transit Authority which will be responsible for the Transport Board and the Transport Authority. (EJ)