No more waiting

PSV body says owners going ahead with cashless system in effort to reduce robberies By Emmanuel Joseph and Sheria Brathwaite The Transport Board will be going cashless from next month, with plans to roll out the payment system to privately-owned public service vehicles (PSVs) sometime after. But PSV owners say that given the need to make themselves less of a target for robbers, they have no intention of waiting on the state-owned entity to implement the cashless system within their own operations. Chief Operating Officer (COO) Linda Holder revealed in an interview with Barbados TODAY on Wednesday that the Transport Board is in the planning and preparation stages for introducing the automatic cash fare collection system. “We have already installed the equipment on the vehicles, we have already done the training of our staff, and we did do some testing of the equipment itself. We are not yet ready to do the full launch, we are still aiming to get that done within the next month,” she said. “We want to make sure that as we roll it out, we are addressing all of the possible areas of challenges. We are going to roll it out using the old age pensioners first, which is a captive demographic, and we are working with the ministry that is in charge of the new ID cards to ensure the two systems link properly and there are no issues, in that the system would recognise that this person is of a certain age, and would prompt and allow them to go. “We are at the point where we have started to train our staff, we have trained our drivers, we have tried to train our supervisors and we will continue that process to make sure that we are ready for a launch in the next two weeks. We are aiming for August,” Holder added. Explaining the cashless method of payment, the COO said that while pensioners would only need to touch their new digital Trident ID cards on the equipment in the buses, other passengers would have to obtain a specially-issued card from select Transport Board outlets. “They [general public] will be able to use cards as the first option, which will be a standard card like how you would use an Oyster card when you go somewhere and put money on it, and then you tap and go. And then as it relates to old age pensioners, the ID cards are going to recognise their age. They would not need to have any funds in order to tap out. It [system] will process them there based on the age,” Holder pointed out. However, she announced that in the long run, commuters would be able to place their funds in an electronic wallet. “It is basically going to be a card with a chip in it that you can put money on…top it up at any of our locations that we will identify for you…and you can put some funds on it and you can use it as an e-wallet. The first set of cards are not purchased. You get it and put money on it, but if you lose that, then you purchase,” the senior Transport Board official explained. Holder also revealed that the cashless fare method would be used on all Transport Board-managed buses, including the privately-owned vehicles plying routes under the Transport Augmentation Programme (TAP). “It’s a process. We start with the big blue and yellow buses first…Transport Board vehicles first, and we move onto the Transport Board’s managed and operated vehicles, which would be the TAP vehicles,” she said. Director of the Transport Authority Ruth Holder said her department is waiting on the Transport Board to roll out the system before it can do the same for the privately-owned PSV operators. “Once they get it sorted out, then we will be in a position to roll it out to the private PSV sector,” she told Barbados TODAY. However, in a separate interview, Chairman of the Alliance Owners of Public Transport (AOPT) Roy Raphael said his membership could no longer wait on the Government to introduce the system to do so, as they had dragged the implementation process for too long. “We were basically waiting on Government in order for us to start it but I don’t think we should wait on Government now at this moment to bring regulation to have all vehicles cashless . . . ,” he said in light of attacks on PSV operators, including the highly publicised attempted armed robbery of ZR driver Marlon Tempro on Monday. “We are in discussions right now, we are looking at it. There are some owners that we already indicated to them that we will do some trial programmes. We are already in discussions with two companies, who have approached us so far and we have given some consideration to one of them to start the pilot project on ten to 15 of our buses along the route,” he said. Chairman of the Association of Public Transport Operators (APTO) Kenneth Best added that the cashless system would deter “lawless hooligans in Barbados who do not want to work for money honestly” from robbing PSV workers on duty. “The cashless system would reduce the temptation to rob a vehicle because there will be no money on this vehicle. We have lost a life already in St Lucy where a minibus driver was robbed and shot. People are of the view that PSV workers carry a lot of money with them during the day and at night, and if the cashless system is introduced you would be able to save somebody from what happened to the driver that was killed in 2021 and the attempted robbery the other night,” he said. Best acknowledged that the cashless system will bring some major changes in the industry and a number of people may be retrenched. However, he said, that change was for the greater good. “Are we going to continue to drag our feet introducing the cashless system because people will be retrenched? I say no. It is needed urgently and the Government needs to work with us to have regulations or laws in place,” he added. emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb]]>