The Sunday Mail
Editor’s Brief
Victoria Ruzvidzo
Zimbabwe’s urban transport system has been a major sore point over the past few decades. The advent of commuter omnibuses and recently the mushika-shikas (pirate taxis) that have infested the roads have brought chaos, compounding an already precarious transport situation.
While these appear to have brought relief somewhat to the commuting public, it has always been a love and hate scenario in which they are considered unsafe but commuters are left with little choice.
It is against this background that we acknowledge the new measures to redress the situation as announced by Cabinet last week. Transport plays a central role in economic development so it is critical that systems in this sector operate optimally.
The years of an efficient transport system in the mould of the Harare United Bus Company have become more of a mirage than a possibility over the years but the latest announcement has rekindled hope for better days to come.
Some of us were in early primary school when we would go for the 6am Harare United bus from Marondera to Harare. It was always on time. It would leave the station at exactly 6am come hell or high water.
In Harare we would dash for the 7.30am bus to my grandmother’s house in Mufakose which would be right on time. The beauty of it was that the next bus, either 15 minutes or 30 minutes later would be on time as well in case we missed the earlier one.
This system made planning easy for years. It turned travel, both inter and intra-city into an art of some sort. Queues, no matter how long (there weren’t that many long queues) would disappear in a matter of minutes. Of course they were not the fastest buses on the planet but they were efficient and not as risky and as carefree as the kombis that have been plying routes with flagrant disregard of passenger safety.
People have died, and some have been handicapped because of the kombis’ disregard of the rules of the road but that is soon coming to an end. How soon will obviously depend on the implementation matrix.
Factors such as rural to urban migration, the increasing number of vehicles on the road and poor infrastructure, among others.
Congestion in Harare particularly, has become a menace. Whereas peak period such as mornings and evenings were known for congestion, it is now a common feature on many roads leading to or from the Central Business District throughout the day.
Motorists are known to spend about two hours trying to get through such notorious spots as the Simon Mazorodze Mbudzi roundabout. The high volume of traffic on that road demands enlarged infrastructure. Even Cabinet acknowledged this challenge.
Other roads such as Seke Road are almost impassable between Cripps Road and the Fly-over just before Kenneth Kaunda Avenue. It is also a mission to navigate Bulawayo road between Belvedere and the Kuwadzana roundabout.
Samora Machel Avenue, Sam Nujoma and other roads also demand a lot of patience from motorists.
A World Bank study revealed that at least $45 billion worth of road infrastructure was lost in 85 countries from Africa, Asia and Latin America between 1970 and 1990. Much of it is yet to be installed or refurbished.
Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa on Tuesday announced that Cabinet had approved recommendations to ease congestion.
An inter-ministerial committee established a fortnight ago brought before Cabinet a raft of measures to restore sanity on the roads.
A key measure here pertains to the upgrading of ZUPCO and the expansion of its current fleet.
The current Zupco fleet has been unable to meet demand resulting in the continued stay of commuter omnibuses on the roads. A large fleet will obviously ease the situation. Therefore, the proposed 667 additional buses are set to cover the distance in terms of availing more buses for the commuting public.
Zupco operations desperately need sprucing up. The company has also experienced heavy losses over the last few months through fraudulent behaviour by some of its employees.
The parastatal also needs to train some of its crew members on customer care and business etiquette. We hear reports of some of the bus drivers choosing not to stop at some bus stops along routes where they find too few passengers to warrant them to stop. We are told this normally happens during off peak hours and yet the buses will be almost empty. This gives room to illegal transport providers to step in and ferry the stranded passengers.
It has since been proved that an efficient public transport system can easily take the mushika-shikas off the road systematically. Random police raids have failed to eliminate them completely because they always find a way of getting back onto the streets due to high demand for transport while also bribing their way through.
As proposed by Government, strict adherence to time tables, construction of more terminuses and capacitation of Zupco should make the transport system more responsive to commuter needs.
Furthermore, repairing of traffic lights and other control mechanisms, road repairs and erection of kerbs to avoid U-turns should improve the urban transport systems and make life better.
So much production hours are lost as workers manoeuvre to their work stations. The effect on productivity is usually underestimated because it is not immediately evident within systems. In Lima, Peru, for instance, it has been established that commuters spend an equivalent of 20 days per year in congestions.
These are hours that would have otherwise been used productively. Also the psychological effect of an inefficient transport system is also overlooked. Stress build-up affects productivity levels while negatively impacting family life, among some of the dangers of an unreliable transport system.
Very few companies provide staff buses hence the majority must look out for themselves. The dangers and fears, particularly under the Covid-19 pandemic environment are unfortunate.
In its quest to transform the situation, Zimbabwe will also need to borrow from experiences in other countries that have managed to install efficient urban transport systems.
Of course Africa generally faces transport issues but a few have overcome these.
Research shows that the top five cities with the most efficient transport systems are:
Cape Town, South Africa.
Lagos, Nigeria
Tunis, Tunisia
Cairo, Egypt
Nairobi Kenya.
In these cities, efficient bus systems, trains, trams, private taxies and motorbikes are in operation.
The long proposed establishment of a commuter train between Harare and Chitungwiza can be revived. The dormitory town sees thousands of commuters troop to Harare every morning for work and other needs. So an efficient train in the mould of South Africa’s Gautrain or the metros can do the trick. Not just on that route but others such as Ruwa-Harare, Norton-Harare and Marondera-Harare, from where the capital city draws some of its labour-force.
Aropet (2017) argues that the provision of safe, accessible, and affordable public transport infrastructure is a vital requirement for the socio-economic development of the South African (read Zimbabwean) population. This scholar propagates that it also holds the potential to provide for decent wages and working conditions for the sector’s employees, as well as for those sectors that depend upon it for demand for their output. Zimbabwe is thus on the right track if the proposed interventions are implemented.
The National Development Strategy document notes that there is a lot of work that needs to be done to improve both urban and rural transport systems in this country.
“The economic challenges experienced over the past two decades have affected the ability of the country to ensure continuous and sustained rehabilitation and maintenance of transport infrastructure.
“Additionally over-reliance on rod transportation is putting pressure on already depreciated road networks requiring extensive rehabilitation,” the NDS document states.
Targets have been put in place to ensure the transport network improves significantly. We have already witnessed the construction, particularly of inter-city roads while in Harare some internal roads are also currently under construction to improve the situation.
This, augmented by what came out of Cabinet last week, should see an upgrade of the transport system in this country.
It would be important for targets, timelines and deadlines to be observed for each of the projects that have been earmarked to ensure results are achieved.
While Government continues to make efforts, local authorities should stop sulking and step up to the plate to do their part. They must ensure functional infrastructure such as traffic lights, road markings, road signs, kempt bus stations and other such services are in place.
In God I Trust!
◆ Twitter handle: @VictoriaRuzvid2; Email: [email protected]; [email protected]; WhatsApp number: 0772 129 992.
