IRBID — As a result of the “obvious
chaos” in the transportation sector in the Jordanian capital and governorates,
several measures have been taken since 2017 to control the sector.
اضافة اعلان
Public bus operators have been given
a five-year deadline for the sole proprietorship to turn into merger companies
to further streamline the
public transportation system.
One of the private companies moved
first and submitted a merger request to the Jordan’s Land Transport Regulatory Commission
(LTRC).
Jordan News contacted the first
companies that took the step to bring under its umbrella individual bus owners.
Ismat Jaradat, managing director of
Al-Hadari Transport Organizing Company, who is also a member of the Jordanian
Bus Owners Syndicate, and the union's secretary, told
Jordan News that,
"We started with inviting buses operating on routes and within the city
merging them into one company.”
The company held a series of public
events to present the idea to the target partners, and the effort paid off.
“The result was the inclusion of a
large number of bus owners under the name of one company, while each of them
has his own commercial license.”
According to Jaradat, the procedures
are multifaceted and they address different issues.
"We began to impose a special
uniform for bus drivers, and then we set specific schedules for the trips; we have
also introduced a mechanism to make sure that drivers are not overworked. As
for the routes, they are outlined clearly and it is not allowed to deviate from
them, as citizens can track them through the website, and if the bus is found
to be taking a different route, and I case it was a deliberate move, there will
be consequences.”
He also added, “At peak times, there
is a possibility to increase the number of buses on a certain route, and the
number of shifts has already been increased. In addition to that, we have reduced
unemployment by asking for more drivers, and that also increases the ease of
movement for the Jordanian citizen, and of course we provide social security
for workers.”
Jaradat complained about the
insufficient cooperation of the LTRC, saying: "We bore the entire cost of
this project, meaning that the government and the commission did not provide
any financial backing. Now, we are demanding financial support to more bus
owners to join in; this will improve the services and render public
transportation more civilized and better regulated.”
In a phone interview with
Jordan
News, Rola Al-Omari, director of the Land Transport Office in Irbid, the entity
responsible for the implementation of this project, acknowledged that the said
private companies “took a bold and big step three years ago with the aim of merging
public transport buses, but the authority's response was very slow, as it took
eight months to form the first committee to look into the matter, even as the
contracts were already signed.”
According to Omari, Irbid is the
first governorate to take this step. However, she hopes that the same mechanism
would be implemented across the Kingdom in order to “regain the trust in the
public transportation sector in Jordan.”
Jaradat told
Jordan News that he was
invited by the LTRC to further discuss the needs, demands and way forward
regarding this project.
Omari expected that the meeting “would
clarify the problems facing these companies and bus operators, and thus the
authority will be able to solve these problems as soon as possible and with
minimal losses."
Reham Qandil, a citizen who used to
use public buses inside Irbid, said that, “I can now know the exact time of the
bus's arrival at the station."
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