Financial Times

Point of View
What’s wrong with transport in a private bus?
The private bus transport sector in Sri Lanka is not regulated or properly managed by the government. For example owners of private buses are mostly individual businessmen and others engaged in full time employment who often lease buses and run them as an additional source of income.

On the other hand route permits to operate on specific bus routes are issued on a political basis by politicians to their supporters. Bus conductors and drivers do not receive any training at all, and specially the job of being a bus conductor is open to any person with out skills training as there are no training requirements. On the other hand bus crews are paid daily wages as per the income they generate on a particular day. If the bus crew brings in Rs. 3,000 (after settling diesel bills etc.) for the owner at the end of the day the driver and the conductor would be paid around Rs. 300. If they bring more than that they will earn more. If they collect lesser amounts no wages will be paid in order to motivate them to bring more income to the owner. Sri Lanka's bus conductors and drivers do not have a dress code and they wear anything acceptable to them. Usually they wear sarongs, shorts, trousers, t-shirts, shirts etc. Sometimes they wear slippers and often are bare footed. Bus crews do not think seriously about having a pleasant appearance.

It is time the government took steps to administer and regulate the private bus transport sector in a professional way. For an example it is important to give on the job training to both bus conductors and bus drivers. For private bus conductors a "Diploma in Bus Conducting" may be organized and conducted in Sinhala and Tamil mediums. This diploma may cover areas like, ethics, communication with commuters, commuter relations, cash management, basic skills in English, Sinhala and Tamil languages, social responsibility, soft skills scheme, etc. Bus drivers may also be given additional training in the same areas. Also it is important for either a dress code or a uniform to be introduced. The present wage compensation for them result in fierce competition to earn a bigger collection at the end of the day. The bus accident in Alawwa was due to competition and trying to overtake another bus. A wage system linked to the income earned per day will work for sectors like marketing of tangible goods, manufacturing sector (to encourage high output) etc. But when this is introduced in a service industry like the transport service it results in disregard for the quality of the service offered to the commuters. Also commuter safety and pedestrian safety are at risk. Thus the service standards will be lowered. The government must immediately step in and constitute a Wages Board for private bus crews, under the Wages Boards Ordinance.

Bus crews should be paid a fixed salary, and also be made members of the ETF, EPF and other social security schemes for which they are not covered at present.

There should be an end to the practice of issuing route permits on a politicized basis. Instead route permits should be given after careful analysis of the number of commuters in a specific area and also the population. Otherwise too many route permits for one route as it happens now will result in fierce competitions among the bus crews to grab the commuters. This will do more harm than any good.

New laws are required for bus owning individuals to form limited liability companies for their transport business rather than own buses on an individual basis. This will ensure that the individuals concerned operate their transport business in a systematic way with more focus than the present way of individual ownership of buses.

Rohan
Wickremasinghe
Colombo 9.

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