The State Transport Company is looking to acquire some buses idling under the Quality Bus System (QBS) system, popularly known as Aayalolo, to augment its fleet.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, the Managing Director of the STC, Nana Akomea said his outfit needed a minimum fleet strength of 150 buses.
[contextly_sidebar id=”q9QEc1pmZqOa82v0lkVZiHJlDG4B2ZUj”]The Corporation is currently working with a fleet of about 50 buses.
Nana Akomea noted the nuances that had to do with buses earmarked for intercity and intracity travel, but said the STC could work around the technical dynamics.
“Despite slight difference in the configuration, it will be possible for us to look at some of them and see which of them can be deployed for the short haul… It is a matter of rethinking how to redeploy the buses that are sitting idle.”
Nana Akomea will be trying to raise STC on par with some of the company’s private counterparts in the market, but he said the STC is still playing catch-up to companies like VIP, which has taken over the intercity transportation.
He also noted that there is still “a lot of debt sitting on the books” of STC as management now tries to “claw back some of the space that STC had.”
In line with this, the STC will be scaling up its efforts on the Accra to Kumasi route, starting in the first week of July 2017.
“We are going to guarantee the travelling public that if you came to STC on the hour, between 6am and 6pm, there will be a bus that will take you to Kumasi… We are going to rebrand our services to offer the Ghanaian customer a different and superior experience to what they will get at VIP and other places,” Nana Akomea said.
Why the Aayalolo buses are idle
197 out of the 245 Aayalolo buses imported into the country for the Quality Bus System have been reported to be sitting idle since 2016.
The reports indicate that only 48 of the buses are being used for the service, which was initially known as the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).
The 197 buses have remained idle because the corridors which are supposed to be developed for the QBS are yet to be implemented.
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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana