An In-depth And Riveting Analysis Of The Public Service Vehicle Sector (PSV) In Barbados

Submitted as a comment by BU family member Inkwell in response to BU Blog It Is Business As Usual In The PSV Sector Prime Minister

Hon John Boyce, Minister of Public Works

The Public Service Vehicle sector has for some time been the source of much concern to Government and the society in general. It has been accused with justification of uncivil, illegal and offensive behaviour and the “minibus culture” has been deemed to have a corrupting and disruptive effect on the nation’s youth. Many have called on the operators to correct this behaviour and all right thinking citizens agree that change in the sector is required. This article looks at the background to the issue and puts forward some of what I think, from many conversations with owners and operators of these vehicles, are the underlying reasons for the present situation and proposes some solutions.

Public transportation in Barbados is provided by the Government owned Barbados Transport Board and privately owned Public Service Vehicles (PSV’s). The Route Taxi (ZR) pays road taxes of $4,500 annually for vehicles licensed to carry 14 passengers. The Minibus (B) pays $7,200 annually for vehicles licensed to carry 34 passengers. The Transport Board bus (BM) pays $800 for vehicles licensed to carry 34 passengers and $2,500 for buses licensed to carry 65 passengers.

Hino Rainbow coaches operated by some private owners, have a seating capacity of 31 and standing capacity of about 20, for a total of 51. Under the existing permit structure, the number of passengers allowed on these vehicles is 34 and the Police routinely report the operators for “overloading” if more are on board and remove the excess. The Ministry of Transport has been requested to amend the permits of owners of these vehicles to recognize the larger capacity, but has not seen fit to do so, much to the frustration of these owners.

Transport Board buses carry more passengers than permitted on a daily basis and the Police routinely turn a blind eye, while persistently reporting PSV personnel and ordering as few as one (1) excess passenger off the vehicle. Drivers and conductors feel that they are being unfairly targeted, while Transport Board drivers are allowed to break the same law with impunity. There is no transport system in the world that can accommodate peak period demand without some crowding and PSV’s ought to be given the same leeway as that extended to the Transport Board, in the interest of efficiency in transporting the commuting public.

PSV’s are refused access to the facilities of the country’s three major bus terminals, Fairchild St, the Lower Green and Speightstown, much to the inconvenience of the operators and traveling public, who have no shelter from sun or rain at these locations. The conditions which PSV crews and commuters have to endure, particularly at the River stand, are deplorable and unacceptable in any society aspiring to developed status. The two areas formerly used by the PSV’s at Probyn St and Speightstown are now prohibited and PSV’s are forced to park along the road, an action which many operators feel was taken deliberately to discommode them. In addition, PSV crews and passengers at these locations have no toilet facilities, the lack of which promotes unsanitary conditions.

Bus fares have been fixed by Government at $1.50 since 1991. The cost of vehicles, replacement parts, servicing, mechanical repairs, bodywork, diesel fuel, oil and lubricants has increased out of all recognition in the seventeen intervening years, but Government has consistently refused consideration of a fare increase or a reduction of other imposts and as a result, the profitability of the sector has been steadily eroded over the years almost to the point of non-viability.

The Transport Board has operated at substantial losses over the past forty years and Government has continued to subsidize it at considerable cost to the tax payer rather than increase bus fares. The corollary to this is that Government is forcing private transport providers to operate their businesses at an income level which it knows to be below the economic cost of providing the service and making it extremely difficult for them to survive. The Public Service Vehicle operator is very likely the only entrepreneur in any free enterprise economic system who has had his income base legally restricted, while his operating expenses have been subject to everyday inflationary pressures over a seventeen year period, in addition to the imposition of punitive taxes by government.

For many years up until the beginning of the new school year in September last, Government mandated that students in uniform or students of other educational institutions with identification pay $1 on private or public transport. The Ministry of Education paid the Transport Board a subsidy of .50c for each student carried. The PSV operator could not legally refuse to carry students, but was denied any reimbursement from Government and was in effect being forced to subsidize student travel out of his own pocket.

It is accepted that maintaining low bus fares is a part of Government’s social policy as a way of easing the economic burden on that part of the population with the lowest income levels. While this policy is laudable, it does not take into consideration that private owners constitute a substantial part of the island’s public transportation infrastructure and that their operations are as a result negatively affected, in view of the fact that they receive no subsidy from government.

While The Transport Board imports its buses duty free and other operators in the transportation industry, tour coaches and taxis receive duty free concessions from Government, PSV’s are subject to normal import duties on vehicles and parts.

In circumstances where they can get no increase in income or relief from other taxes and duties and in the face of ever increasing operating costs, the only means of survival for the PSV operators is in maximizing the numbers of fares collected, hence the constant competition among themselves for passengers, resulting in complaints of overloading, the breaking of traffic laws and general lack of consideration for other road users.

The official setting of an artificially low bus fare has other unrecognized or unacknowledged negative implications. The first of these is that the earning capacity of workers in this sector has been similarly limited for the past seventeen years. Their wages have been limited by the fact that their employers’ income base has been set by Government mandate, whereas workers in the competing Transport Board have had increases in wages over the same period, increases which have been funded from the public purse and not solely from income generation.

A worker who has not had a wage increase in seventeen years and who has to work a fifteen hour day on average to maintain a basic level of income is a disgruntled worker.

This situation has led to an extremely high turnover rate in employees in the sector and indeed some of these employees make their way into the Barbados Transport Board, where they find better wages and relief from what they perceive to be unfair police treatment, but carrying with them some of their bad “PSV” habits.

The second implication of the seventeen year old $1.50 fare is that the low wages available in the PSV sector attract only a certain level of employee. The inability of owners to offer a decent wage affects their ability to attract a higher level worker and as a result, we are seeing the type of indiscipline and indeed hostility being exhibited.

None of the above is intended to defend or excuse loutish behaviour or condone the breaking of traffic laws, but to offer an explanation of some of the reasons why they occur. It needs to be recognized that the PSV sector provides an indispensable service to local commuters and is a critical component of the productive sectors of the economy of Barbados, transporting, as the records will show, a larger section of the work force daily than the Transport Board. They, however, perceive that they are being discriminated against, subjected to unfair competition and marginalized by the Government.

The playing field needs to be levelled and a more realistic approach to the pricing of transportation needs to be taken or conversely, the private owner should be subsidized at some level from the Government purse, if low cost public transportation is deemed to be an essential component of its social policy.

When the PSV operator does not have to fight tooth and nail and compete under adverse conditions for each passenger just to survive, is not subjected to blatant official discrimination and can earn a decent wage while working reasonable hours, then we can expect him to feel more a part of society and conform to its rules, rather than a pariah and behave as such.

The onus has been placed on the sector to be self regulating. This is extremely difficult, if not impossible, given current circumstances. The Association of Public Transport Operators, (APTO), the “regulating” body, is technically non functional and will continue to be non functional as long as it has no authority over those it is supposed to regulate. The Association at present has no capability to organize, regulate or discipline PSV owners or operators. It has no authority and no teeth. There are over four hundred PSV owners on record, but fewer than one hundred are members of APTO. If the goal of regulation of PSV’s is to be achieved, Government must give the Association the tools it needs to do the job. I suggest that this be accomplished by the following:

1) All owners, drivers and conductors must become members of the Association and carry valid accreditation.
2) The annual renewal of permits of owners should be made conditional on paid up membership of APTO.
3) Only members of the Association should qualify for the reduced diesel price being offered by Government at Transport Board depots.
4) Only members of the Association should qualify for any other concessions granted by Government.

In this way the Association will have the means whereby it could exert control over the sector and

1) Set and enforce a dress code for operators,
2) Establish standards of behaviour,
3) Establish a disciplinary committee to handle complaints,
4) Institute a program of training for operators and
5) Eliminate the loud playing of music.

The Association of Public Transport Operators can and should become a body working in co-operation with the new Transport Authority to regulate the operation of PSV’s. The Association needs to be in a financial position to establish a permanent office to enable it to carry out its administrative function in an organized manner and in particular to respond to concerns or complaints from the public. A subvention from Government for this purpose might be considered appropriate to supplement proposed membership fees.

Another circumstance which severely compromises the ability of the sector to control its employees is as follows. Insurance companies in Barbados insist that drivers of vehicles covered by their policies be interviewed and approved by them. They insist however, that to qualify, the applicant must have been the holder of a driver’s license for a minimum of five years and the holder of a hackney license for a minimum of three years. The effect of this stipulation is that no new drivers can enter the system. Owners therefore have no choice but to recycle drivers who have bad records or suspend the operation of their business if they can find no approved driver, an extremely unattractive option. The issuance of a hackney license to a driver by the Ministry of Transport and Works is meaningless if the insurance companies refuse to accept it and some accommodation needs to be arrived at with the insurance providers to change this no-win situation. I suggest that MTW conduct a meaningful course in the driving of PSV’s prior to issuing the license, thus assuring the insurance companies that the driver is qualified to drive a PSV.

There are some bad apples among the drivers and conductors and there are some owners who tolerate their irresponsible behaviour, mainly because they have little choice. The industry must be able to rely on the Police and the judicial system to control or remove these individuals. Owners cannot reasonably be blamed if the system allows drivers with large numbers of convictions for traffic offenses to continue to hold hackney licenses and operate PSV’s, and they need to be assured that the Court system will do its part in cleaning up this aspect of the industry. In the great majority of cases, fines imposed on offending operators by the Courts come indirectly out of the pockets of the owners, exacerbating their financial position.

The months since April this year have been particularly distressing for PSV owners. Before the removal of the Government subsidy, diesel cost $1.46 per litre, having arrived at this level by a series of increments over the years. Owners at that point had been unsuccessfully lobbying Government for an increase in fares or a reduction in other costs for several years. Then came the increase in the cost of diesel by 77% to $2.57, impacting even more disastrously on the bottom line of the sector. The recent reductions, while welcome, have gone little towards improving the finances of the sector. Since April several owners have been forced out of business because of an unsustainable level of losses.

The provision of free travel for school children in uniform by the Transport Board
from September this year is accepted as a positive development for which the
Government should be lauded. However, even at the fare of $1.00, revenue
formerly generated by the PSV sector from this source was important and its loss
has had an additional negative impact on profitability.

It is unreasonable to expect the privately owned PSV sector to absorb seventeen years of increases in operational costs without an increase in revenue. It is unfair not only to the owners, who for the most part are locked into the industry financially, but also to the workers, of which there are approximately one thousand, who have been unable over the years to earn an income with any reasonable relationship to the increasing cost of living. In my view, these circumstances are in large part responsible for the illegal and anti social behaviour that is the cause of current complaint against PSV operators.

It is also impractical to expect self regulation among such a disparate group of individuals who comprise the owners in the sector (over four hundred), in the absence of some formal organization with the power to regulate.

The sector, in view of all the circumstances outlined above, is appealing for a change in Government’s approach to its problems, relief from state imposed financial hardship and for empowerment with the tools to self regulate.