Getting all on board

WORKS and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan’s disclosure that the new public transport framework will include rideshares is a sign the State is going in the right direction.

At the same time, Mr Sinanan’s assurance that taxi associations will be the first in line to be “consulted” – but only after Cabinet approves the new framework – suggests he might be getting things backwards when it comes to drawing up new measures.

“If it is approved then we go out for consultations,” the minister told members of the TT Taxi Drivers Network (TTTDN), who had picketed his office on Thursday. “I want to assure the taxi associations that they are the first group on the list for consultation and we are expecting (that) to happen as early as next week, because we have a timeframe for implementation.”

This timeline clearly reflects the gravity of the situation. People feel increasingly unsafe using public transport, given a spate of crimes, as well as the fact that reform of some of the messier issues involved has been overdue for decades now.

Mr Sinanan’s announcement that his ministry will next begin a campaign to encourage people to join the legal taxi system underlines that the State has begun to act with some degree of haste on this issue.

However, getting the input of all stakeholders should have been the first step before any note was ever drafted for Cabinet’s perusal.

And while taxi drivers and their associations undoubtedly have a say, equal priority must be given to the people whom the transport system is meant to serve: commuters. That can only be achieved through publication of the Government’s draft plans.

It is instructive, meanwhile, that Mr Sinanan has also expressed a position on the possibility of regulating PH drivers, a suggestion which has already provoked the ire of H drivers, even though plans are still in the process of being approved.

“You cannot legalise something that is illegal,” the minister said on Thursday, in an attempt to be clear on the State’s position.

But of course Parliament can, in fact, enact laws to do precisely that.

Absent full publication of the State’s plans, it is hard to see where exactly the Government is going on this matter or what new measures to bring all classes of vehicles under one ambit will look like.

It is also hard to see what impact the ministry’s campaign, to be launched next week, will make without any specific incentives.

The conditions that have allowed PH drivers to flourish for so long still exist. If anything, irate threats of strike action by H drivers suggest the services of PH drivers may soon be in more demand than ever.