Approximately 20 privately-owned electric public service vehicles (PSVs) will be on the island’s roads by the end of this year.
This disclosure was made on Monday by Chairman of the Alliance Owners of Public Transport (AOPT) Roy Raphael who told Barbados TODAY that after discussions with a firm out of China, several new environmentally-friendly vehicles will soon reach Barbados, and will be used predominantly in the government’s Transport Augmentation Programme (TAP).
“Our project is called [the] Transport Energy Project; we have already started discussions with the Ministry of Energy to bring [15] buses to the TAP programme, and these buses are similar to what the Transport Board [already] has. This will form part of an energy project because, obviously, not all of our members want to go green because of the cost attached to it,” he explained.
The AOPT president also revealed that the association was already in advanced talks with an automobile body-repairing company, L&N Workshop, about manufacturing new energy-efficient buses.
“We are looking to bring in an additional six chassis from China to make them into what we call a Bajan bus. We believe by building our buses [with] L&N, it will create more opportunities in terms of work for Barbadians,” he said.
“It will be a stronger bus in terms of the material and the chassis [used]…to complement the government TAP programme.”
Raphael admitted that the costs for owners investing in green vehicles are still high, but pointed to the benefits such as reduced fuel bills and lower maintenance costs.
“We will be encouraging more of our members [through] the Transport Energy Project to transition their vehicles…. The government has already proposed $3.5 million to assist us in this transport project [so] we should see more Barbadians entering into the programme [with] more permits being released,” he said. (SB)
