During the recent weeks, there have been the resurgence of photos circulating in the media showing people on long queues and other somewhat chaotic scenes in public bus terminals and bus stops across Kigali. The images which are mostly taken during peak hours – early in the morning when people are commuting to work and later in the evening as they return home – give a clear picture of the woes in our public transport system, which are unfortunately not new. These challenges have been with us for some years, only that there had been a lull, which can be attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic that saw movement restricted as many people took to working from home for over two years. As the economy fully reopens, the old ghost has returned to haunt us, only that what was an already bad situation has been exacerbated by the same pandemic, which affected the public transport business despite the various government interventions, including subsidies. When the economy finally reopened, the bus companies which were already grappling with an old fleet, only returned with even fewer buses, because either they were too old and therefore not roadworthy, or even those that could be fixed there was no money to have them fixed and brought back to the roads. The biggest loser in this all is the passenger and this calls for concerted effort to arrest this problem to ensure that people are able to get to work on time and commute back home in relative comfort. The good news is that all hands seem to be on deck as the City of Kigali, Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority and Rwanda Transport Development Authority are working with the private sector to bring this to an end. The best solution as it stands is to probably change the approach from the original plan of having three transport companies exclusively take on public transport in Kigali, which is growing both in size (by way of sprouting suburbs) and population. They are already overwhelmed as it stands. It is perhaps time to open up and bring on board more private entities in the short run as we consider more durable mobility solutions for a fast-growing metropolitan like Kigali.
