Dear Editor,

The Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC), and by extension the Jamaican taxpayer, has had to contend with haemorrhaging losses on a daily, weekly, and ultimately annual basis. To say that losses at the State-run bus company are seemingly permanent fixture is to put it mildly.

Along with this big elephant of financial losses, the transport giant has had to contend with other issues, especially as it relates the cleanliness of the internal environment of the buses. It is this niggling issue which, one suspects, gave credence to the position taken by the management team to ban vendors who seek to ply their wares on the buses. Notwithstanding the fact that, as a regular user of JUTC buses, I do encounter garbage on some buses, I think that total preclusion was and is not necessarily the best course of action.

Along with this big elephant of financial losses, the transport giant has had to contend with other issues, especially as it relates the cleanliness of the internal environment of the buses. It is this niggling issue which, one suspects, gave credence to the position taken by the management team to ban vendors who seek to ply their wares on the buses. Notwithstanding the fact that, as a regular user of JUTC buses, I do encounter garbage on some buses, I think that total preclusion was and is not necessarily the best course of action.

Considering the cash-strapped nature of the company, it may be prudent for the JUTC to investigate avenues by which vendors could actually be charged a daily, weekly or monthly fee which would grant them access to the buses and ply their goods.

This fee payment would entitle venndors to some sort of access card or certificate which would be shown to bus drivers. The earnings from such a venture may not accrue to millions, but it offers an opportunity to both the bus company and vendors to arrive at a mutually beneficial position.

As far as the cleanliness goes, I believe that as commuters and citizens we must take civic pride in our environs and institutions, inclusive of the JUTC buses, and as such were are just as accountable for keeping the buses clean as are the resident workers of the company.

Noel Matherson