Taxi numbers a puzzle

THE letter in Friday’s The Herald from a taxi owner (“Taxi operator compensation not being properly addressed”) is rather eye-opening and disturbing at the same time.

I’ve always wondered about the compensation model for the “taxi owners” who are required to remove their vehicles from specific routes to allow for the buses to be viable.

Cedric Potgieter raises the issue of overtrading and illegal taxis, which begs the questions:

How are the number of taxis determined and who is responsible for policing these illegal taxis?

The second question is really simple to answer.

The non-performing traffic department would surely be responsible for policing the taxis on our roads, but can it?

I ask “can it” as I’m pretty sure many of the officers’ colleagues are involved in this industry to varying degrees.

As to the first question, the department of roads and transport would surely be responsible for this – the less said about its abilities the better.

The matter of the buses themselves is rather interesting.

Why this particular model was chosen confounds me.

The only explanation I can see is that this whole scheme was put in place to enrich connected individuals and the consequences of this is a millstone around the ratepayers’ necks, ruined roads with congested traffic.

Port Elizabeth has always had a very good bus transport system, which I used throughout my youth to traverse this city at all hours of the day.

Why do we need to have this convoluted taxi-bus operating model when we have an established bus company in the city with the experience to offer this service?

There are many more questions to be asked of this disastrous endeavour, but that’s another chapter for another day.