Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

Thou­sands of com­muters across Trinidad are ex­pect­ed to face se­vere trans­porta­tion dis­rup­tions from Mon­day, af­ter maxi taxi op­er­a­tors con­firmed they will pro­ceed with a na­tion­wide with­draw­al of ser­vice fol­low­ing un­suc­cess­ful talks with Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

As­so­ci­a­tion of Maxi Taxis Trinidad and To­ba­go sec­re­tary Vick­ash Kisoon­dath said yes­ter­day that op­er­a­tors from four of the coun­try’s five ma­jor maxi taxi routes com­mit­ted to the in­dus­tri­al ac­tion, with school trans­port providers al­so back­ing the move.

“This ac­tion is go­ing to hap­pen,” Kisoon­dath said.

“The op­er­a­tors al­ready made up their minds. We can­not con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing un­der these con­di­tions while promis­es keep get­ting pushed back.”

The shut­down is ex­pect­ed to be­gin on Mon­day and con­tin­ue in­to the week un­less au­thor­i­ties pro­vide writ­ten com­mit­ments ad­dress­ing the op­er­a­tors’ con­cerns.

Kisoon­dath said the de­ci­sion came af­ter an­oth­er meet­ing with min­istry of­fi­cials on Thurs­day failed to pro­duce con­crete re­sults on sev­er­al long­stand­ing is­sues af­fect­ing the sec­tor.

“We met yes­ter­day (Thurs­day) ex­pect­ing progress, but once again there were on­ly dis­cus­sions and no firm ac­tion,” he said.

“Every month we at­tend meet­ings and every month we are told the same thing that the mat­ters are al­most com­plet­ed and sit­ting on a desk. Op­er­a­tors are tired of hear­ing that.”

He said op­er­a­tors had spent months try­ing to re­solve the is­sues through for­mal chan­nels, in­clud­ing reg­u­lar ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee meet­ings with Min­istry of Works and Trans­port of­fi­cials. Ac­cord­ing to Kisoon­dath, op­er­a­tors be­lieve they have ex­haust­ed all op­tions avail­able to them.

Among the ma­jor con­cerns raised by maxi taxi op­er­a­tors are the 65 km/h speed re­stric­tion on high­ways, in­creased Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route (PBR) pass fees, com­pe­ti­tion from PH ve­hi­cles and re­stric­tions on ac­cess to cities and bor­oughs af­ter hours.

He al­so crit­i­cised what op­er­a­tors see as in­ad­e­quate reg­u­la­tion of PH ve­hi­cles.

“The PH sys­tem was meant for rur­al dis­tricts and af­ter-hours trans­port, but now they are work­ing di­rect­ly against maxi op­er­a­tors on our routes,” he said.

“We are heav­i­ly reg­u­lat­ed, we pay li­cens­ing, in­sur­ance and op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es, but il­le­gal com­pe­ti­tion con­tin­ues to grow.”

Kisoon­dath said ris­ing op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es were plac­ing se­vere fi­nan­cial strain on op­er­a­tors.

“The Gov­ern­ment has to un­der­stand that op­er­a­tors al­so have fam­i­lies to feed and bills to pay. We can­not con­tin­ue ab­sorb­ing ris­ing costs while our con­cerns are ig­nored.”

Asked about con­tin­gency plans for com­muters, Kisoon­dath said the ac­tion was in­tend­ed to demon­strate the im­por­tance of the maxi taxi in­dus­try to the coun­try.

“The maxi taxi in­dus­try car­ries thou­sands of peo­ple to work, school and busi­ness every day,” he said.

“If the maxi taxis stop op­er­at­ing, the coun­try will im­me­di­ate­ly feel the im­pact. That is the re­al­i­ty.”

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the in­con­ve­nience to com­muters, Kisoon­dath ap­pealed for pub­lic un­der­stand­ing.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our for a re­sponse to the con­cerns raised by maxi taxi op­er­a­tors but no re­ply was re­ceived up to press time.