‘SPTC cannot introduce smaller buses on secondary roads for now,’ says acting CEO |20 July 2023

Mr Zialor

The Seychelles Public Transport Corporation (SPTC) says it cannot introduce smaller buses on secondary roads and for now it will maintain the ones operating on those routes in the country.

Speaking to Seychelles NATION, the company’s acting chief executive, Geffy Zialor, explained that currently the situation with the secondary roads is at a standstill.

He said the buses carry a maximum of 30 passengers.

“The smallest we can go is between 15 and 20 passengers, which also requires extra drivers. If there is a demand for 30-40 seats and you have 15-20 passengers per bus, most probably you have to increase the frequency. Once you do that you need more buses and more drivers. These are resources we do not have and which is not economically viable,” he explained.

Mr Zialor noted that presently a lot of buses are allocated on secondary roads, however a lot of those roads are not adequate for those vehicles.

According to him some of these roads require four wheel drives. “We have approached foreign companies such as Tata to provide us with those types of vehicles, but the development of a four wheel drive right now is a little bit difficult or there is not enough of a high demand to make them,” he added.

Mr Zialor said SPTC is also considering using H1 vehicles on those routes and has already held discussions with owners of such buses. “Actually we welcome these sort of things, and we have had discussions with them but it is not something that SPTC does just like that. There need to be a whole planning and proper set up,” he stated.

Meanwhile, with regard to its cashless system introduced at the beginning of the month, SPTC says it is working with the Seychelles Electronic Border System (SEBS) to try and capture the statistics of passengers who are migrants working in the country and those who are on holiday.

Mr Zialor said the statistics will allow SPTC to have a better understanding of the number of foreigners using the bus service daily, compared to locals, and better plan its services.

Presently the company has rolled out two packages for tourists under its new cashless system; namely 10 euros which covers four days and 20 euros for eight days. “This in itself is a start, with the idea of eventually developing a product that will pick up,” he concluded.

Sunny Esparon