The Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) has had its fair share of news coverage in recent weeks with talk of new routes being undertaken by the entity beyond the Kingston Metropolitan Transport Region (KMTR).

Much praise has come for the move from commuters in St Thomas, Clarendon, and now Manchester.

Among the observations is that these additional routes are sessional and based on peak times.

This, therefore, begs the question: How difficult could it be for the same JUTC to operate the varied routes in the KMTR on a schedule that is adhered to?

The scenes of commuters waiting in bundles at bus stops across the Corporate Area and along routes with nary any idea when the next bus will arrive to take them to their destination are too many to ignore.

The summer break does not seem to have helped, even though minister with responsibility for transport Mr Daryl Vaz advised just this past July that some 100 units have been added to the fleet.

The result is frustration, lost man-hours, and immeasurable impact on the nation’s productivity.

This uncertainty in the system — and plain waste of time — feeds the now-ubiquitous, yet illegal, robot taxi service. Commuters know the risks to life and limb they assume, but face seemingly greater penalty if they cannot make it to work or to varied places of business.

A bus service that runs on a schedule and on time ought not to be seen as an imperious ask; in fact, no transportation construct worth its salt should consider itself serving its customers well without one in place.

Many major cities of the world thrive on timed transportation operations that facilitate connections and multi-modal transfers. There are apps that indicate where units are along a route, the wait times, number of stops away, and other key information; there is no need to reinvent the wheel. One imagines this is not beyond a city such as ours.

What is required is the will and commitment of the JUTC to develop, communicate, and monitor such a system in service of its customers.

No doubt, the travelling public would pay a little more if the frustration of, oftentimes, hour-long waiting were removed.

In 2015, The University of the West Indies student Mr Oswald Smith designed a GoogleTransit-assisted mapping service for the JUTC’s routes.

Said the young innovator then: “I take the bus and I always had these questions: ‘Where do I find the information as to what bus goes where? Where do I get what bus? What route does the bus travel? What stop do I need to get off at?’ ”

He pitched his idea to the JUTC.

“We know the reputation that Government has, [so] when I was heading to the meeting with them I didn’t have any good expectations. I thought they were going to give me whatever red tape and reasons why it couldn’t be done. [But] they actually said this was something that they wanted to do…” Mr Smith told the Jamaica Observer.

This newspaper’s reporter wrote: “The information technology consultant rolled up his sleeves right away and spent an entire weekend writing the programme to transfer the JUTC data onto Google’s platform.”

A decade later, where is this system? Where’s the public education campaign? What improvements have been made?

Though it may be too big an ask for adhered schedules to be implemented for the start of the 2025-26 academic year, would that the JUTC come to realise the impact it could have on the country’s productivity, levels of frustration, and ease of doing business if commuters could know for sure just when the next bus will arrive.