UDART ships in 70 new coaches to boost services

By MAUREEN ODUNGA

A CONSIGNMENT of about 70 buses worth over 40bn/- belonging to the famous Usafiri Dar es Salaam Rapid Transport (UDART) arrived yesterday from China, aiming to ease congestion in their areas of operation.

Speaking to journalists in Dar es Salaam yesterday, the Managing Director (MD) of UDART, Mr Charles Newe, observed that the arrival of the buses will help strengthen the transportation system in the city.
“With each vehicle having the capacity to accommodate about 160 passengers, they will therefore increase the number of users enormously from the current 200,000 and reduce the cost of travelling.
On the other hand, about 70 to 100 direct employment will be created, leave alone the number of indirect employment, this means a boost to the country’s economy,” said Mr Newe.
He noted that the increase makes a total of 210 buses, with the current demand requiring up to 305 buses to accommodate the users. He further noted that people using their own vehicles will be able to save a maximum of 8,000/-, as they will only spend 2,000/- instead of 10,000/- for their go and return fares to and from their work stations.
The MD also observed that plans are under way to introduce more feeder routes in the northern part of the BRT roads.
Mr Newe also revealed plans of coming up with solutions to tackle some of the existing challenges, such as access of prepaid cards and long queues for obtaining tickets. “The transport system is designed in such a way that at least 70 per cent of its users should acquire prepaid cards, but it’s different here since only 30 per cent of users possess the cards,” he noted.