UAE firm set to commence transport services in Dar next week

Dar es Salaam. The Usafiri Dar es Salaam Rapid Transit (Udart) is set to have a competitor soon, The Citizen has learnt.

The government, through the Dar es Salaam Rapid Transit Agency (Dart) will sign an agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) firm to offer the service starting from the second week of September.

Dart chief executive Edwin Mhede told this paper yesterday that after the completion of all due procedures, the new service provider was expected to bring 95 buses to operate in the phase1 (one) project.

Currently, the Dar es Salaam Rapid Transit (BRT) project phases1 has 210 buses.

This suggests that the coming of 95 buses will bring a total number to 305 buses that will be operating along Morogororo Road.

Dr Mhede said that the new service provider will be operating in the trunk routes as Udart operate in the feeder routes.

Dr Mhede stressed that buses to be brought by the new operator will be modern. They will have an Intelligent Transport System (ITS) that will point the location of a drive and identify dead routes and undead routes.

ITS is an advanced application which aims to provide innovative services relating to different modes of transport such as traffic management, enable users to be informed and make safer, more coordinated and smarter use of transport networks.

With the buses, daily passenger figures is expected to increase to between 400,000 and 500,000 from the current 180,000 and 200,000.

Explaining about the BRT phase2, he said the construction had reached 66 per cent and will be finalised in March next year.

Once the construction of phase2 is completed, some Udart buses will start operating the Kilwa route.

“The phase 2 project is expected to benefit an estimated population of 1.2 million people,” he said.

This represents 25 percent of the Dar es Salaam city population.

Other beneficiaries include users of the major city connecting Mandela and Nyerere roads.