A newly formed body representing the gamut of public service vehicles on the island is threatening to “shut down five to eight routes” unless long outstanding issues relating to the transport sector are addressed.
The year-old Alliance for Owners of Public Service Vehicles has identified high insurance fees, high fuel costs, an ageing transport fleet, bus fares and transport pirates as burning issues it wants urgently tackled.
So pressing are these problems, as well as what the Alliance sees as the apparent inactivity of the Transport Authority in dealing with route pirates, that interim committee chairman, Roy Raphael, said the Alliance had engaged the services of a local trade union to intercede on its behalf as it seeks a meeting with Minister of Transport Michael Lashley.
In addition, said Raphael, the group was willing to consider strike action to press its demands.
“Transport is too serious and critical,” Raphael said.
“[But] if the need arises we will take some kind of action and action will mean that we might have to ask members of both sectors, including the public service vehicles operators and people also working within the private sector who understand what they will be asked, to see if they could provide some kind of assistance for us to interrupt some routes so that the Transport Authority knows we are serious,” he said.
