We're putting bus system where it should be -JUTC official
Published:Sunday | January 4, 2015 | 4:04 PMChristopher Serju
In the drive to move its fare collection to a cashless system, the Jamaica Urban Transit Company Limited (JUTC) will still cater to those persons who occasionally turn up with money-in-hand.
"We are going cashless but we are not going to remove cash totally off the bus," JUTC Marketing and Communications Manager Clinton Clarke told The Gleaner. "However, we want to operate a system that is smooth, decent and First World, and these decisions that we are taking to remove the 'Pay for Other' option from the concession card and to stop preaching, eating and petting and all other kinds of things are geared at improving what we have as a public-transport system."
Clarke continued: "All that we are doing is making the steps over time to get the system to where it ought to be. We are not killing anybody because we are not charging for the cards if they come and put a minimum of $200 on it, and we have enough cards for people to have cards."
SmartCard success
In recent times, the JUTC has ramped up efforts to get the commuting public, especially youth, disabled persons and senior citizens for the most part, to buy into its SmartCard option, with some amount of success.
"The people in those categories who do not have cards, I would say they represent a small amount of people, and this decision will now get that small amount of people to comply," Clarke disclosed.
He threw out a challenge to the public:
"We are not against people criticising what we do but when you criticise us, come up with a solution or a suggestion as to how you think it could work, and let us examine it. You might be on the outside looking in and your suggestion, when examined by us and we give you a response based on our existing circumstances, you might understand exactly the reason why it couldn't work that way."