The government will be purchasing additional buses over the next two years to expand the fleet of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC).
The Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Dr. the Hon. Nigel Clarke, in his budget presentation, committed the funding for 100 new electric buses in the 2024/25 fiscal year and 100 in fiscal year 2025/26.
Teams from the Ministries of Telecommunications and Transport as well as Finance and the Public Service are engaged in talks to see whether there is any possibility that an order for 100 buses can be done if the funding is available before the end of this financial year.
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Improving the Public Transportation System
The government will be purchasing additional buses over the next two years to expand the fleet of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC).
The Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Dr. the Hon. Nigel Clarke, in his budget presentation, committed the funding for 100 new electric buses in the 2024/25 fiscal year and 100 in fiscal year 2025/26.
Teams from the Ministries of Telecommunications and Transport as well as Finance and the Public Service are engaged in talks to see whether there is any possibility that an order for 100 buses can be done if the funding is available before the end of this financial year.
In addition, 20 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses have been ordered through a framework agreement. The government is expecting to have six here by November and the other 14 by January 2024. These will add to the 50 units recently acquired for the State-owned company.
The JUTC is coming from a rollout of about 140 buses however the optimum is about 400 buses. Based on emergency procurement of spare parts, the JUTC has been able to restore and rehabilitate 125 buses, which gives it 265 buses, without the 50 new buses. With the 50 new buses, the JUTC now has 315 buses on the road.
The average age of the fleet at the State-owned bus company is between 12 and 14 years.
The government is also considering expanding the route offerings of the JUTC to as far as Williamsfield in Manchester and to Albion in St. Thomas.
This is as the Government continues to build out the country’s road network under the Southern Coastal Highway Improvement Project (SCHIP) and is looking to expand operations to routes covered by the project.
It is also opening the routes for larger buses which are privately owned that can be licensed, so that they can take the schoolchildren. However, with the procurement lead time of six months, it is hoping to get those buses by the first half of 2024.
The Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) began operations in July 1998 and currently serves routes in the Kingston Metropolitan Transport Region (KMTR) comprising the Corporate Area of Kingston and St. Andrew as well as Portmore and Spanish Town in St. Catherine.
