THE Jamaica Urban Transit Corporation (JUTC) has reported sales of $115.5 million to subscribers of its Smart Card service, in the July to September quarter of 2004, reports Jamaica’s economic planning agency.

The sales topped the previous quarter by 25 per cent when JUTC earned $92.5 million from the electronic cards, with the growth attributed to the recruitment of a new sales team last April.

The Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), in its July-September issue of Economic Update and Outlook, also reported that there were 39,373 Smart Cards in circulation by the end of September, compared with 35,003 at the end of June.

The bus company made $23 million profit for the quarter, representing 4.7 per cent of all revenues, representing half of a percentage point gain on the previous quarter’s outturn.

JUTC operated an average 383 buses per month within the review quarter, one more than the corresponding period last year, but ran significantly fewer passenger trips – 16.1 million on average per month, down from 21.1 million per month in the third quarter of 2003.

Fare income also fell overall by 4.5 per cent to $489.7 million, a decline of 4.5 per cent, relative to the 2003.

“The lower out-turn in the review quarter has been attributed in part to the disruptions to the service caused by Hurricane Ivan,” said the PIOJ. “There were no bus operation for three days and for seven days there was reduced service,” the report stated.