Four major bus operators in the Central Division have called on the Land Transport Authority to better enforce e-ticketing regulations for the system to work better.

Fiji Sun spoke to five bus owners, who said they were generally satisfied with the system except for a few aspects that made it incomplete.

None of the five wanted to disclose whether revenue had improved since the system’s implementation.

Preferring to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, the bus owners said the authority was harsher on drivers and operators.

One bus owner said because the authority “had not done its part,” passengers continued to breach the system.

He further called on LTA to hire more enforcement officers who could stay inside buses and ensure the law was being followed.   

“The enforcement side is lacking. They (LTA) should get into buses, check the cards and penalise people.”

“(If they can’t do it) they should give our checkers the authority to check these things.”

LTA chairman Vijay Maharaj said they were trying their “level best” to rigorously enforce e-ticketing laws.

Mr Maharaj said: “Only last week we had consultations with the bus operators association and we told them that we are in the process of recruiting 100 enforcement officers.

“As soon as we get these law enforcement officers, which hopefully will be very soon, we’ll be able to enforce the e-ticketing laws more rigorously.”

Four of the five bus owners interviewed by the Fiji Sun accused the authority of being too harsh on drivers, while one said he had no problems with it.

“The trouble is that passengers, after creating trouble on the buses, are gone,” Mr Maharaj said.

“So unless the drivers have details of the passengers, it’s very difficult to look around for them and we don’t have the resources to do that.”

This January, LTA issued 27 Traffic Infringement notices to bus drivers for allowing the use of wrong cards and accepting cash.

While, 21 notices were issued to passengers for using wrong cards and not paying bus fares.

Another owner said passengers unwilling to pay would just leave behind a dollar coin with the driver and enter the bus.

“They are not afraid, if the enforcement was more proactive, and if there were stricter fines, passengers would not do these things,” he said.

Edited by Percy Kean

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