Barbadians are being assured that plans to convert the Transport Board into the Barbados National Transport Co-operative will not result in the negative behaviours presently being displayed by some public service vehicle (PSV) workers.
Oriel Doyle, president of the Co-operative Investment Fund Ltd and the Barbados Co-operative Business Association, who previously outlined the proposal, sought to allay concerns by Barbadians that this might only be a name change.
He explained that under the National Transport Co-operative model, there will be no outside shareholders extracting profits. Instead, the enterprise would be governed by four distinct classes of members: Transport Board workers; private PSV operators represented by the Alliance Owners of Public Transport; ordinary commuters and civil society groups; and the Government.
These groups will elect or appoint representatives to an 11-member board of directors, while day-today operations will be handled by a professional, experienced chief executive officer and management team.
Doyle said the proposal, which was submitted to Government and welcomed in principle, offered a structural cure rather than just stricter disciplinary rules to discourteous drivers, reckless driving and arbitrary route changes.
“When a driver owns a share of the co-operative, every discourteous act and every late arrival is a cost that comes back directly to them,” he explained. “Passengers driven away by poor service reduce the revenues that pay wages and member dividends.”
Concrete measures
He pointed out that this owner accountability would be backed by concrete measures, including a zero-tolerance conduct policy enforced in partnership with the National Transit Authority, and mandatory accreditation and training for all operators before they were allowed on the road. He also promised that every existing route, schedule and stop would be maintained during the changeover to prevent daily disruption.
Doyle insisted that the long-term benefits for commuters would be significant as the proposal outlined plans for better fleet maintenance, a unified contactless payment system, real-time route tracking, and the full integration of ZR vans and minibuses into a coordinated network.
More importantly, commuters will be invited to become shareholder members, giving them a formal vote in how the service is governed and a share in any annual surplus. Furthermore, a Public Service Obligation Agreement with the Government will legally safeguard rural and elderly routes.
Doyle pointed to successful transport co-ops in Italy, the United Kingdom, Bolivia and Uruguay. In Montevideo, Uruguay, when private bus operators collapsed, workers collectively took ownership, restructured management and restored services with documented improvements in reliability. He said DEMOS, an international co-operative development consultancy, had expressed readiness to guide the Barbados transition.
Doyle noted that the proposal aligned perfectly with recent comments by Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, who described the Transport Board divestment as an “enfranchisement exercise” meant to put economic power into the hands of ordinary Barbadians rather than a narrow investor class.
“This is not a privatisation, nor is it a transfer of one monopoly to another,” he emphasised. “It is a genuine dispersion of economic power to the driver, the mechanic, the commuter, the ZR owner and to the people of Barbados.” (MB)