Senator Nicholls: PSV sector should be treated like public utility

A Government Senator has suggested that the Public Service Vehicle (PSV) sector should be viewed as a public utility and regulated as such to stamp out the unsavoury behaviour plaguing the industry.

Contributing to debate in the Upper House on the Road Traffic (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 2022, Senator Gregory Nicholls said the problems with PSV operators who were often involved in reckless acts on the roads and substandard service could be addressed with proper oversight.

“I do believe that the Transport Authority has to start to take a more serious look at how the sector is regulated.

“I, for one, if I had to do it I believe that you would not have any issues about uniforms…. They [PSVs] would be owned by private individuals but they would be run in a system where you could create an algorithm to determine how the vehicles are distributed across the routes to service the public. Like in any organised society, there is not a free-for-all in public transport, and I think that is where we have missed the boat,” he said.

Contending that public transportation should be treated as a public utility, Nicolls added: “It’s a service that has to be used by people and we have not treated public transport as a utility service, because utility services should be publicly regulated.

“What we have is the Government subsidising the public transport sector in the Transport Board to a large extent, but the Transport Board does not even capture 25 per cent of the market. Those private sector vehicles all like now in the off-peak periods are in the bus stands hardly servicing the routes unless you are working on Highway 1 or Highway 7.”

The Government Senator insisted that a properly regulated system of public transport provides the opportunity to address the issues that have arisen in the current free-for-all environment.

“You would not have a private operator saying ‘well look, I made enough money to go to my owner, so I will put down this vehicle at eight o’clock, let me go and get some diesel and I chilling out’…having people who work all around Barbados, particularly in the hotel sector, scrambling to get home into the rural areas of Barbados… because they can’t get from the coast into rural Barbados after seven and eight o’clock at night when shifts finish,” he argued.

Nicholls further suggested that regulated salaries for operators could be considered as a way to stop PSV drivers and conductors from hustling on the island’s roads.

“If you regulate that sector, then fellas don’t have to be on the road trying to hustle, because they would be paid a salary and the revenue from the entire sector goes back to pay the owners after the operating expenses are deducted. That is how proper industrial regulated transport systems function…. I believe that unless we move to that system, that indiscipline will continue on the roads,” he declared.

shamarblunt@barbadostoday.bb