STUDENTS are being urged by the State-owned Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) to regularise their smarter cards in time for the new school year, which begins on September 7.

“It is very important that students, from now until August 29, do everything in their power to fix their smarter cards. If they have lost or had their cards damaged, they need to come in and have their replacement cards,” marketing and communications manager at the JUTC, Clinton Clarke, told JIS News in an interview.

Clarke said that, by getting this done early, schoolchildren avoid running into problems at the start of the school term.

“What we do not want is for September morning to come and for them to hit the road and have any difficulty. So, it is very important for them to come out now,” he advised.

For students entering high school with a smarter card, and who have reached 12 years old, they are also being encouraged to go in to JUTC locations in order to have the profiles on their cards updated.

In the meantime, it is expected that the bus company will roll out a full complement of approximately 452 buses at the start of the new school year.

“We want to make certain that all the existing routes, especially the trunk ones, which are the very big ones, are properly served. This is to make certain that they take the people to where the connections are to be made, such as the Half-Way-Tree Transport Centre and downtown Kingston,” Clarke said.

He added that the commuting public can expect high-quality service and punctuality come September.