A road Engineer, Mahama Abdullai has described as a joke the Quality Bus System (QBS) also known as the Aayalolo bus service which has been struggling to make profit, eight months after its first bus hit the streets of Accra.

He made the remark on the back of revelations that the management of the transport system is operating at a loss, eight months since it began commercial services in the capital.

“I was telling my friends on a platform; I said this thing is a joke. You need to see traffic engineers, sit them down and go through this thing holistically,” the traffic engineer said.

Reports indicate that, about 197 out of the 245 Aayalolo buses imported into the country for the QBS have not been used since 2016.

Only a few Ghanaians patronize the QBS following some processing involved in accessing the buses including the electronic payment system which many believed should be scrapped to encourage more access the buses.

This situation among others has resulted in the inability of the company to earn enough to cover operational costs.

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast on Wednesday over the development, the road engineer, Ing Abdullai was skeptical about the survival of the much hyped bus system.

To him, the system was not “well thought through” before it was implemented.

“If you look at the one that they are piloting now, the Amasaman stretch to Accra; it is absolutely impossible to operate such a bus system. The terminal that they are using now is very small located in premises of the Amasaman police station. Before you will be able to come to the road furniture, the rapid transit system ought to work in a location where there is a very good car park. If you look at the Amasaman road to Accra, we are restricted with two new district barriers. The road doesn’t have a room to maneuver when you are coming in the morning or evening with about 4 kilometer traffic. The system is not well thought through as at now.”

“I even think the one at Adenta en route to Accra is more flexible because of the lanes and the less restriction on it. The Adenta one has similar restrictions at some small sections. Like when you get to the Legon stretch it has three lanes and one of the lanes could be restricted for the buses.”

Apart from the lack of dedicated lanes for the buses, Ing. Abdullai noted that Ghanaians were also not ready to embrace the bus system.

“There is no discipline, the roads are not even enough for the system,” he added.

Low patronage affecting us

The Chief Executive Officer of Greater Accra Passenger Transport Executive (GAPTE), Sampson Gyamenah while addressing the media admitted that low patronage of the bus service since it commenced business in 2016 has kept its books in the red.

“We still have a long way to go to be able to break even. We are ramping up the number of passengers and that is the real challenge. When we started the patronage was very poor. In December, we were doing an average of 1, 400 passengers a day,” he added.

Meanwhile, the State Transport Company (STC), had served notice of acquiring some of the QBS buses to augment its fleet.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin