Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA) will this month roll out a smart card to facilitate monitoring of drivers of public transport vehicles.

The cards are supposed to support RURA, Police and vehicle owners in dealing with errant drivers, according to the Head of Transport Department at RURA, Emmanuel Asaba Katabarwa.

"The cards will help us to control all drivers, each driver will be having a machine-readable card showing records of all the mistakes and kind of services offered while on the road,” he told The New Times on Monday.

Asaba was reacting to complaints by City of Kigali dwellers and regular users of public transport who said they were tired of arriving late at work due to either bus delays or waiting in long queues for a taxi.

"I commute daily to work but buses always delay, which affects my work. I waste a lot of time because of these delays,” said Clemence Musabyimana, a resident in Kicukiro trading centre.

She added public vehicles regularly stop between bus stations for hours, wasting not less than 30 minutes.

"Sometimes the buses park for long and this is not good for passengers. They make us wait for hours. You can imagine the frustration of waiting for a bus which takes forever to arrive,” said Agnes Nikuze, another passenger.

Some passengers called for more buses on the roads.

John Paul Muneza claimed it is not easy for them to get buses heading to Nyacyonga.

But Asaba explained that the problem is not about the number of buses as passengers think.

He attributed it to poor conduct of bus drivers, whereby some park for 30 minutes waiting for passengers, which is not allowed.

He noted that buses are not supposed to wait for passengers at bus stop but the other way around.

"A bus has to stop on a particular stage to drop off or pick up someone already waiting at the stop. No driver is allowed to lure or wait for passengers. That is a big mistake. We tried to train them and sensitise them about the regulations but some of them still ignore it,” Asaba said.

He faulted some drivers who abandon their designated routes to operate on other "lucrative” routes, saying it creates shortages elsewhere.

He, however, assured passengers, saying a solution will soon be found with RURA staff and Police being deployed to do the monitoring.

"Punitive measures are being implemented, every day we punish more that 20 people over different faults. Some of them are punished and they repeat the same mistakes because sometimes they think that the authorities are not watching them,” Asaba said.

The new cards will detail conduct of a driver in all operations and make it difficult for one to switch employers without a clean track record.

This will make those ones who don’t want to understand to change their behaviours or lose their jobs, Asaba said.

Asaba called on travelers to act as watchdogs, and demand for good service as it is their right. Each bus has contact number in front which passengers can call whenever they notice that a driver is breaking the rules.  

But one driver who plies downtown-Kicukiro route explained that the buses delay because they have to wait for passengers to fill up before embarking on return journey.

We can’t leave the stage when a bus is not full because we also need money for our company, he said on condition of anonymity.

"We have new buses where passengers use a smart card to pay so when we don’t raise the amount needed they will think that we receive that money and pocket it. We fear for our jobs because the company also has to pay us and they pay taxes too, so we have to wait for passengers,” the driver said.

In 2003, three companies were given tenders to operate in four different zones in the City of Kigali.