Commuters will face challenges as government moves to gradually implement the city transport system, which locks out upcountry buses from accessing the city of Kigali.

Passengers to and from provinces will be the most affected as they will be forced to board buses twice while coming or leaving Kigali.

Officials at City of Kigali said the move, which is aimed at decongesting the city, will see all passengers from upcountry dropped at bus terminals in the outskirts of the city, leaving the rest of their journey to be covered solely by the city’s existing public transport system.

“The changes have already started, and we are mainly seeking to do away with traffic jam and congestion at bus stages and parking, but there is another aspect whereby we had upcountry operators competing with the city’s built public transport system,” said Rauben Ahimbisibwe, director for infrastructure at City of Kigali.

City council said all the buses plying the Eastern Province routes through Bugesera will have Nyanza as a terminus while those plying Rwamagana will be dropping passengers at Kabuga in the outskirts of Kigali.

However, other upcountry operators namely those plying Kigali-Musanze-Rubavu and Kigali-Muhanga-Huye, among others, will continue to use Nyabugogo main taxi park pending locations of their out-of-town terminuses.

Mr Ahimbisibwe said only cross-border road transport operators will remain sharing Nyabugogo main taxi park with Kigali Bus Service (KBS), Royal Express Ltd and the Rwanda Federation of Transport Co-operatives (RFTC), the three operators that were allocated Kigali’s public transport routes.

But passengers have expressed concern about the likelihood of incurring additional costs. For instance, while the journey from Nyabugogo to Nyamata in Bugesera went for Rwf600 under the existing transport system, passengers are required to pay Rwf250 from Nyabugogo to Nyanza, and then board the Rwf500 bus, bringing the total to Rwf750.

Equally, fares were slightly slashed on the other destinations along the Kicukiro-Bugesera route, but still passengers incur Rwf250 of Nyabugogo-Kicukiro in additional costs.

The costs are however much higher for those with luggage like the retail traders, who make up a big number of upcountry travellers, as they have been forced to bargain twice for the hiked charges.

A section of the passengers also complained that the fact that the changes were abrupt acted as a disruption which service providers took advantage of to hike costs.

The Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA) is yet to issue new tariffs even as the city moves to implement similar adjustments on the Nyabugogo-Rwamagana route.

While a section of the transport operators expressed concerns that the changes are a disruption to their businesses and could have implications on their expected profitability, passengers received the changes with mixed reactions.

Already travellers to Eastern Province through Bugesera were shocked as they were forced to incur extra costs to move from Nyabugogo main taxi park to the new dedicated terminus located at in the peripheries of Kicukiro.

Changes in tariffs

The situation has added pressure to the already-crowded Nyabugogo-Kicukiro itinerary with long queues of waiting passengers and luggage.
The Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (Rura) is yet to reveal the changes in tariffs, but Col Dodo Twahirwa who heads the Federation of Transport Co-operatives (RFTC) said that the new prices will be determined on the basis of the number of kilometres covered.

This means that existing fares could remain unchanged only that they will be shared between the transporter operators depending on each one’s covered distance.

Mr Twahirwa said the changes were discussed and agreed on by all the concerned parties. He, however, admitted that any further concern would be looked into and addressed.

“Let’s first see how it goes, in case of any challenges, they will be addressed because this is not meant to hurt anyone. What is intended is helping the public,” he said.

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Kigali’s public transport system has in the past seen a number of reforms with no impressive changes especially on the rampant congestion problem.

Passengers have continued to queue longer on their way to and from work even after the systematic allocation of routes, introduction of alternative roads and increase in high capacity buses, among others.

City of Kigali officials argue that the situation could be blamed largely on the traffic jam which made the existing public transport system difficult to work effectively, as there are no dedicated lanes for public transport vehicles.

Mr Ahimbisibwe said that locking out upcountry buses from coming into the city would ease the city’s public transport while at the same time paving the way for smooth implementation of other smart initiatives like the cashless payment system.