The Vice President, Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has announced that government was in the process of procuring 100 brand new electric buses for the Metro Mass Transit by the end of the year.
He said the 100 electric buses were to augment the exiting buses of the company, including the 100 new DAF buses recently procured to enhance its operations and bolster profit for sustainability.
Dr Bawumia disclosed this at the official launch of a new digital platform for public commercial transport operators dubbed: “Tap & Go” in Accra yesterday.
Tap and Go is a single system common platform created for the entire transport ecosystem, including both inter and intra city bus services, the trotro, loading taxi service and the demand for Uber services.
Dr Bawumia explained the solution to addressing a number of challenges that confronted public commercial transportation was to provide a single transport card for all commuting payments.
He said the new tap and go system was equipped with additional features tailored to support various modes of transportation, including parcel delivery and tracking, taxi hailing, intercity bus services, inner city bus service such as metro mass, ayalolo, adding, “Soon we are looking forward to bringing on board the GPRTU Trotro services which will be integrated seamlessly.”
The Vice President noted that the tap and go project aimed at revolutionising public transport experience by helping curb some age-old problems associated with the public transport system.
“I have been talking about corruption mistrust between drivers and vehicle owners as well as the hassle of cash transactions causing needless delays over the fair change,” he said.
Dr Bawumia said prior to the implementation of the tap and go system on pilot basis, audited report of the Metro Mass Transit showed that the company was losing about 50per cent of its revenue annually.
“So there was a 50-50 sharing (ch3mp3) in operation right? You get everything you take half and give half to government, but since the tap and go was implemented by metro mass transit, you have seen that that leakage has been plucked and today revenue that metro mass transit is making on the intercity routes from 200 or so buses is more than the revenue it was making from 500 buses before. 200 buses is giving us more revenue than 500 buses,” he stressed.
He said the platform had come to address a major leakage that was threatening the very survival of metro mass transit, stressing that “you’ll know that there was not even money to pay for many needs of metro mass transit and workers of metro mass were being threatened with layoffs because of the losses that were being incurred by the company.”
Dr Bawumia said with the introduction of tap and go, revenues from the operations of the transport systems landed directly into the bank account, enabling the banks to provide financing for new buses because of the confidence that repayments to whatever loans provided for the buses would be made from the bank accounts.
On his part, the Minister of Transport, Mr Kwaku Ofori Asiamah, said the latest initiative aligned with government’s agenda to introduce innovation in public transport service delivery as well as ensure the safety, security, and wellbeing of public transport users.
He said the tap and go system was an innovative and game-changing technology that represented a significant milestone in the continuous efforts of the government to improve and modernise the public transport services delivery.
BY CLIFF EKUFUL