The Bar­ba­dos-based Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB) says in­creas­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive ca­pac­i­ty, im­ple­ment­ing cash­less pay­ment sys­tems and user in­for­ma­tion por­tals as well as en­hanc­ing ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty for vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions, form part of a com­pre­hen­sive frame­work aimed at sus­tain­ably im­prov­ing pub­lic road trans­porta­tion in the re­gion.

It said that the a vir­tu­al de­vel­op­ment of sus­tain­able pub­lic trans­port sys­tems work­shop held ear­li­er this week, un­der­scored the fact that pub­lic trans­porta­tion in many of re­gion­al coun­tries cur­rent­ly faces chal­lenges such as in­ad­e­quate ser­vice, un­re­li­a­bil­i­ty, poor or­gan­i­sa­tion, and lim­it­ed ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty for vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions.

Oth­er trans­port ser­vices, such as route taxis, con­tribute to traf­fic con­ges­tion, pol­lu­tion, and some­times vi­o­lence among and against op­er­a­tors. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, trans­port in­fra­struc­ture, such as bus stops, ter­mi­nals, main­te­nance fa­cil­i­ties, is high­ly sus­cep­ti­ble to cli­mate change im­pacts, the CDB said.

It not­ed al­so that ur­ban growth, ris­ing in­comes, and in­creased au­to­mo­bile de­pen­dence have led to ur­ban sprawl, un­der­scor­ing the need for in­te­grat­ed tran­sit and land use plan­ning to re­duce pri­vate ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic.

In 2021, CDB com­mis­sioned a study to as­sess and pro­pose so­lu­tions for cre­at­ing a sus­tain­able pub­lic trans­port sys­tem, us­ing Grena­da and St. Lu­cia as case stud­ies.

The pro­pos­als shared dur­ing the work­shop were based on plac­ing the cus­tomer at the cen­tre of the trans­porta­tion sys­tem and in­clude strict qual­i­ty con­trols for bus ser­vices, a new con­tract scheme for fo­cused ser­vice de­liv­ery, re­design­ing bus net­works to in­clude ex­press routes and feed­er lines, im­proved bus stops, and im­ple­ment­ing com­pre­hen­sive timeta­bles.

Ad­di­tion­al rec­om­men­da­tions in­volve fleet op­ti­mi­sa­tion, tran­si­tion­ing to en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly bus­es, en­hanc­ing dri­ver train­ing and work­ing con­di­tions, ex­tend­ing ser­vice hours, op­ti­mis­ing net­work de­sign for bet­ter cov­er­age, en­forc­ing reg­u­la­tions, re­duc­ing traf­fic con­ges­tion, and ad­dress­ing the high costs of pub­lic trans­port ve­hi­cle pro­cure­ment and main­te­nance.

The act­ing di­vi­sion chief at the CDB’s eco­nom­ic in­fra­struc­ture di­vi­sion, William Ash­by, not­ed that the cur­rent state of pub­lic trans­port in the bor­row­ing mem­ber coun­tries (BMC) does not serve the mo­bil­i­ty and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty needs of the pop­u­la­tion ad­e­quate­ly, adding that the tech­ni­cal as­sess­ment aimed to as­sist CDB in de­vel­op­ing sus­tain­able gen­der-re­spon­sive and so­cial­ly in­clu­sive mea­sures.

“The pro­vi­sion of a sus­tain­able pub­lic trans­port sys­tem that is ef­fi­cient, safe, re­li­able, af­ford­able, en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly, com­fort­able and ac­ces­si­ble to vul­ner­a­ble per­sons, has been chal­leng­ing for gov­ern­ments in the BM­Cs.

“Iden­ti­fy­ing key chal­lenges and de­vel­op­ing strate­gies to ad­dress them while tran­si­tion­ing to a sus­tain­able sys­tem in each coun­try will lead to an in­crease in the vi­a­bil­i­ty, ef­fi­cien­cy and qual­i­ty of pub­lic trans­port sec­tor to meet the needs of the pub­lic,” Ash­by said.

The Agence Française de Développe­ment (AFD) re­gion­al project man­ag­er, Fi­nan­cial Sys­tems, My­lene Leri­gab, said “this tech­ni­cal as­sess­ment will en­able us to pro­vide the ex­pect­ed re­spons­es in terms of re­silient trans­port for the peo­ple of the Caribbean is­lands and in­crease the well-be­ing of all, while aim­ing to re­duce car­bon emis­sions and in ac­cor­dance with the spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics of each is­land”.

She said that vir­tu­al work­shop al­so pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to pro­mote the re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion high­light­ed in this project by shar­ing ex­pe­ri­ences.

CDB said that stud­ies have shown that ac­cess to high-qual­i­ty pub­lic trans­port re­duces de­pen­den­cy on pri­vate cars, while in­te­grat­ing land use and tran­sit re­duces de­mand for park­ing spaces, de­liv­er­ing nu­mer­ous so­cial, en­vi­ron­men­tal, and eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits. (CMC)