Failure to meet demand for travel services these festive days has yet again put Rwanda’s public transport to test, exposing a growing deficit of buses.

Commuters to and from upcountry have particularly been paying the highest price owing to lack of buses on the routes plied by Onatracom, the sole national public transport provider that came to a complete collapse over mismanagement a couple of years ago.

Most upcountry routes have since remained abandoned, pending takeover by Rwanda Interlink Transport Corporation (Ritco) Ltd, the public-private company founded early this year to replace the dissolved Onatracom.

Initially, the Rwf11 billion investment of Rwanda federation of transport co-operative (RFTC) and the government was, according to the parties, expected to bring in 163 ultra-modern buses with the first batch expected to be in operation between six months to a year.

In an interview with Rwanda Today Col Twahirwa Dodo, RFTC chairperson could not give the exact timelines as to when the buses would be deployed on the routes citing the time needed for manufacture and shipment of the vehicles.

Mr Dodo, however, reiterated that once the buses are supplied they would take the services to all the areas previously covered by Onatracom as well as other remote parts of the country.

The private operators have always shunned the rural routes citing the poor quality of roads resulting in high operating costs, hence unprofitability.

The latest statistics by the transport regulator indicate that the country has more than 63 licensed public transport companies and co-operatives, most of which concentrated on urban and paved national roads.

Transport shortage

Last year, trips home for festive days were hampered by transport shortage as a large number of passengers were stranded at the Nyabugogo bus terminus on the eve of Christmas and New Year.

Like the upcountry travels, there have been gaps in responding to the huge demand for public transport services in the urban public transport system.

City commuters to and from work have decried long queues during peak hours and chaotic travel situations in festive days, hence questioning the ability on the side of the operators to handle huge traffic.

The city of Kigali has in the past embarked on a number of reforms aimed at decongesting the city transport system in what was expected to do away with long queues of passengers at bus terminus and bus stops but the situation barely improved.

READ: Kigali implements new transport system

After the systematic allocation of routes introduced earlier along with introduction of high capacity buses as minibuses face complete phase out, the City recently introduced reforms locking out upcountry buses from accessing the capital Kigali starting with those plying the Eastern Bugesera route.

Added burden

According to Kigali City officials, the move intended to decongest the transport system, will also see buses plying the Rwamagana route dropping and picking passengers at Kabuga while outskirt termini for Kigali-Musanze-Rubavu and Kigali-Muhanga-Huye buses are yet to be determined.

This however only added the burden to the passengers who currently wait longer to be picked up from Nyabugogo main taxi park to the newly established bus terminus located in Nyanza, on the peripheries of Kicukiro.

The situation further crowded Nyabugogo-Kicukiro terminus with long queues of waiting passengers and luggage.

The city faces a challenge of ensuring efficient transport services as well as meeting the rapid rate of urbanisation amid increasing traffic on its mostly narrow roads.

Plans to expand the road network to address congestion were marred by budget deficit among other things given the costs of expropriation and topography challenges.

With the City population rapidly increasing, having almost doubled during the past 10 years, industry players say that unless quick measures are taken the current number of buses could still not meet the rising demand.

Official figures indicate that the number of passengers using public transport in Kigali has risen from 250,000 daily in 2013 to 500,000 daily last year.

Kigali’s public transport routes are shared between three operators namely Rwanda Federation of Transport Co-operative (RFTC), Royal Express and Kigali Bus Service (KBS).

However, the latter has recently been taken over by the transport regulator, Rwanda Utilities Regulatory citing the operator’s breach of contract and failure to comply with public road transport regulations.