Bay’s IPTS service misses another deadline as operator lacks staff

THE Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS) has hit another snag – and yet another deadline missed.

On January 10, mayoral committee member for roads and transport Rano Kayser announced that buses would be running within two weeks – but yesterday there were still no buses to be seen.

The fleet of 25 buses is still at the Markman depot.

The first phase of the project – to have been launched last week – would have had buses running on the Cleary Park route.

Kayser’s statement came just days after the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality put out a tender calling for the supply of monitoring equipment for the vehicles.

But when The Herald asked Kayser about his January 10 statement he backtracked, saying the delay was not the municipality’s fault.

However, it needed to give vehicle operating company Spectrum Alert an opportunity to finalise its administration.

Spectrum Alert will operate the vehicles on behalf of the municipality.

Kayser said: “We are ready, [but] part of this delay is because we want to give the operating company an opportunity to deal with administrative matters.”

This, he said, would include the recruitment and training of drivers, conductors and other staff. “I know this process is long overdue and we need to speed it up within the framework of the law.

“Our people have long been waiting for it, but we must give them an opportunity to finalise internal processes.”

Kayser said the delay would not affect future plans negatively.

Spectrum Alert chief executive Christian King said: “The process for staff recruitment is unfortunately not complete.

“As soon as we are done, we will roll it out.”

On several occasions last year, The Herald reported that the IPTS project launch date had been pushed back from April, with trial runs on the Cleary Park route to take place in November.