Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan has said that although fuel prices are set to increase on April 19, there will be no increase in bus fares for the travelling public.
Speaking to the media during a tour of ongoing desilting works along the Malick River yesterday, Sinanan said the Government was instead pushing the Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC) to become more efficient and reliable.
“Our aim is to make that the number one mode of transportation but it has to be a lot more safe, when I say safe, I mean when people come out to take the bus at whatever time, there is proper infrastructure and PTSC will continue to upgrade itself to the number one mode of transportation,” Sinanan said.
He said the PTSC fleet will be increased with the addition of 300 new buses - most of which will be fully electric. He said a fare increase was not on the table at this time.
“For the buses that work with diesel there will be an increased cost to PTSC for that, however, going forward, for the PTSC fleet, we are looking at the electric fleet. We have just commissioned a CNG station in Port-of-Spain, so we are looking at alternative modes of fuelling the buses but at this point in time, there is no consideration of any increase in the cost of transportation at PTSC,” Sinanan said.
He declined to say when the 300 new buses would be added to the fleet but said a request for proposal was put out some time ago.
“There were several tenders and the team that has now taken up that challenge in ensuring that we actually bring in the right amount of buses, the right type of buses, the configuration and so on, I met with them this morning and they will now meet with the preferred tenderer to negotiate the way forward with that,” he said.
Sinanan said he will only announce a timeline when the “right” buses were found and a contract has been signed.
He said the Government wanted to see some of the routes become “green routes” and the PTSC was stepping up to meet that challenge.
Meanwhile, PTSC chairman Edwin Gooding said at present, about half of PTSC’s fleet was being powered by Compressed Natural Gas (CNG.)
He said the PTSC has already submitted its budget for 2023 and would have to manage its spending based on that.
“It’s not a matter of not being concerned, it’s a matter of managing what we have,” Gooding said.
He too spoke about the electric buses, saying once those buses were put into operation, PTSC would spend less.
“The diesel buses are the older buses, so by that time, just by attrition, those buses will fall away and we will have the CNG buses and the majority of electric buses so we will no longer be heavily dependent on diesel,” Gooding said.
