Tickets no Longer Sold on Buses Inside Transport Centre

Operations Manager at the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC), Neville Lynche has informed that as of (January 21), tickets will no longer be sold on buses that are inside the Half-Way Tree Transport Centre.
“No tickets will be sold on buses any longer in the centre, because the ticket office downstairs will be in operation (as of) Monday [January 21],” he said.
Giving an update on the operations of the centre, which was opened on January 12, Mr. Lynche told JIS News that tickets were being sold on the buses in an effort to alleviate the crowd that gathered at the ticket office every day.
“In order to alleviate that problem, we continued to sell tickets on the buses, in and outside of the centre and that area (ticket office) is no longer crowded,” he said.
The Operations Manager noted that most of the confusion that commuters experienced was because they did not know where to locate their buses. “We do not have the kind of confusion that we had on Monday (January 14), because most of the commuters are now accustomed to the location of their buses,” he said.
Mr. Lynche pointed out that in an effort to improve the operations of the centre and make the process easier for commuters, route adjustments have been made. These adjustments, he said, would make transfers easier for passengers.
“To make it easier for them [the passengers], we have made some adjustment to the routes. We have aligned them [the routes] to buses that interchange.so instead of walking or crossing all the way over to the other side of the centre, they will just walk over to the bus they are transferring on to,” he explained.
Mr. Lynche added that the timing of the buses is improving and that they are working on putting more buses on certain routes. “Change is on-going. We take note of what needs to be done as we go along.and what we will do is make arrangements to sensitize commuters of these changes, so that they will not be confused,” he said.
The Operations Manager pointed out that all tickets have a duration time of 1-3 hours, depending on the destination. He informed that the duration time for a ticket within the Corporate Area is one hour, whereas tickets that are beyond Constant Spring have a duration time of three hours.
He is therefore warning school children not to idle within the centre. “Children who mill around for more than 1 hour will have to buy another ticket,” he said. “We hope that will prevent them from idling in the centre,” he added.
In the meantime, Mr. Lynche outlined that the number of customer guides have almost doubled. Although this is so, he is still urging commuters to read the signs and ask questions, so that they will be in a better position to understand the location of the buses.