[sustran] Jitneys - copy of a posting to transit-prof

[Alan P Howes]

[follow-up below]
On Wed, 13 Feb 2002 08:12:20 +0400, Alan Patrick Howes
<aphowes at dm.gov.ae> wrote to "'Transit-Prof at yahoogroups.com'"
<Transit-Prof at yahoogroups.com>:

>In Riyadh (where I was for
>three years), jitneys (known there as coasters) killed the regular bus
>service - what was left got picked up by pick-ups (known locally, in Arabic,
>as "wonayts", which I deduced meant 1.8!). Same in Jeddah. Here [Dubai] there is
>much more regulation, but also our pricing is better - Riyadh and Jeddah had
>2 riyal flat fares (about 53 cents US), while here our average fare is Dh.
>1.42 (say 38 cents), while 43% of riders pay only Dh. 1 (27 cents). 
>
>Of course, virtually none of the riders are GCC nationals (GCC - Gulf
>Co-operation Council, sort of local EU - Saudi, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE,
>Oman). Who rides Tel Aviv's buses?
>
>There is a fair bit more to say on this - I will post again later today from
>home. 

My timescale stretched a bit.

All (fully legal) public bus service in Saudi Arabia is operated by
one parastatal (privately owned but publicly controlled) company, my
former employer, SAPTCO. www.saptco.com.sa . Information below may be
a year out of date.

In Riyadh (pop. 3 million plus), there were about 35,000,000 bus
riders a year back in 1982. That is now down to not much more than 1
million. The rest is on the jitneys, aka Coasters (after the Toyota
minibuses of the same name). Same happened in Jeddah, something like
it in Dammam / Al Khobar. (Atlases out, guys!) Only in Makkah (aka
Mecca) is there still reasonable bus traffic - leastways there was
when I left a year ago. But Makkah is special - it's where Hajj is
going on just now, it gets a lot of fairly-low-income religious
tourists, and there are some restrictions on smaller vehicles at some
times of the year. (And along with other non-Muslims, I could never
get past the bus garage - and yes, it's full of Osama look-alikes.)

What happened in Riyadh is instructive. Despite the high ridership,
there was a big subsidy requirement. This was partly due to the system
(which only started in 1979) being largely US-designed, and Americans
don't understand that transit doesn't _have_ to make a loss :-)  (We
don't lose money in Dubai, at least not much. And we pay back all our
capital costs too!) There was also a top-heavy management and
administative structure (or so I believe - I wasn't around until
1995).

There was also some competition, from the aforesaid coasters and
"wonayts", Japanese pick-ups which seem to be given away out here with
packs of corn-flakes. They are good for carrying camels, or just about
anything else. Some have a double cab.

(Slight digression. A Saudi guy was taken to task for putting his
wives in the back of the pick-up while he had the goats in the cab
with him. Reason - the wives had the sense not to jump out!)

Back in 1982 the buses charged 1 riyal flat fare (say a quarter). To
compete, the coasters and wonayts had to do likewise. However, it was
pretty tight for them at that fare, and they certainly couldn't
replace their rolling stock. So what did the bus company do? They
increased their fares. The competition immediately did likewise, and
suddenly found they were making a profit. Coasters and wonayts
blossomed. The bus company still wasn't in profit, particularly as its
passengers rapidly deserted for the more frequent competitors.

Things weren't helped when the Gulf War came along, and the buses were
commandeered in order to be wrecked by US servicemen on the Iraqi
front.

So now ridership is down by around 95% from the peak. The 1,000 strong
nationwide city bus fleet is grossly underused. Most of it is used on
publicly-funded school runs. (Girls only, curb-to-curb service, the
(male of course) driver has to have a chaperone.) These are barely
profitable, and subject to being poached by other companies. There are
just about seven lines left (there used to be around 20 I think), and
frequencies are way down. There is heavy coaster competition on the
well-trafficked inner two-thirds of all routes. The only place the
buses are reasonably well used is on the outer ends of the route,
where the coasters don't run. And on Fridays, when the coaster drivers
take the day off. (One route was doing very well indeed on a Friday,
with packed double-deckers every five minutes or so. But some fool of
an accountant withdrew it, or at least cut it back heavily.)

The line-haul routes use non-AC buses, although AC buses are
available. Ask the maintenance staff why!

The coasters are dirty, ramshackle, badly driven, badly maintained,
and old. Strangely enough, they are petrol-driven, despite diesel now
being about one-third the cost of gas. At the time they were bought
both fuels cost the same, and the owners can't now afford to replace
them.

There is a ceiling on the number of licensed coasters, and they are
only allowed to ply on one route - but they choose their own
timetable. Their routes just about mirror transit routes. Any one
(Saudi) person is only allowed to own one coaster, though he can get
someone alse (often an Afghan) to drive it. I was repeatedly told that
most coaster-owners were policemen, which would explain a lot. When I
left the coaster guys were trying hard to get transit to put their
fares up.

The wonayts were strictly illegal altogether - but perhaps they were
owned by policemen too.

I tried valiantly, when I was there, to persuade the PTB to reduce the
transit fares to 1 riyal again, at least on the inner end of the
routes. And to actually run the services reliably, with AC buses. But
with no success. At about the time I left, the Ar Riyadh Development
Authority (ADA!) was trying to do something about city transit,
perhaps a demonstration project or something. I must try to find out
what, if anything, has happened.

As already mentioned, things are much better here in Dubai. We do get
borderline competition from minibuses operating "subscription"
services for workers, and from pirate (totally unlicensed) taxis, and
from Sharjah taxis. (Sharjah is the adjoining emirate. Sharjah taxis
are allowed to bring passengers into Dubai, but not to pick up here.
At least, not legally ...)

We benefit from the recent "nationalisation" of all (legal) local
taxis, with the inevitable expansion in bureaucracy and therefore
prices. Also, just before I arrived, the carriage of passengers in
(the back of) goods vehicles was banned. The police are a lot better
here too - though they do ticket our buses for parking if they have to
stop on-carriageway because of illegal parking in the bus bay!

Well, I hope Marcos is still lurking and may find this useful, and I
hope the rest of you at least get a laugh or two - think how fortunate
you are! Come to think of it, I might as well post this on
sustran-discuss, where it will blend in better.
-- 
Alan & Jacqui Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland)
alaninthegulf at yahoo.co.uk (Alan)        cybermog57 at yahoo.co.uk (Jacqui)
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/  [Needs Updating!]