Fresh move to sort out Dart chaos
What you need to know:
The average daily Dart ridership increased from an average of 76,000 per month, four years ago, well below compared to the current 200,000
Dar es Salaam. In a fresh bid to surmount overcrowding at stations and in buses, the Dar Rapid Transit (Dart) Agency plans to come up with an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) before the end of this year.
Dart chief executive officer Ronald Lwakatare said yesterday that the system to be supported by the World Bank, will have features such as a control center, bus tracking, CCTV cameras and Passenger Information System that will assist in solving the challenge.
Saying they had already started installation of CCTV cameras in all main stations using their own money, he said, they would not depend each and everything on the World Bank, but rather work in collaboration.
“With ITS, we will be able to monitor all bus stations and movement of buses, to see whether or not are adhering to schedules as per contract,” Mr Lwakatare told The Citizen over phone yesterday.
He said the system would be giving Dart a full picture on what is happening on the ground and so is easy regulating the performance of the operator.
“A scoping study on the ITS is currently ongoing and expected to be completed by April 2020,” Mr Lwakatare said during the 13th Joint Transport Sector Review meeting which was held on Monday this week.
He said the scoping study was meant to identify the actual demand of among others, required equipment, before announcing the tender for the system installation.
Noting that he could not reveal the cost of the system because the tender was yet to be announced, he said, the project would be financed by a portion of a $425 million (about Sh964.7 billion) loan agreement signed with a World Bank in 2017.
Other mega projects to be financed by the sum in question under the Dar es Salaam Urban Transport Improvement Program (DUTP) are Ubungo Interchange and construction of phases three and four of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).
“We will know the exactly cost of the ITS after the completion of the scoping study and announcement of the tender. We want the cost to be determined by the market,” said Mr Lwakatare.
He said overcrowding at the stations and in buses as well as scrambling of passengers to enter the buses were attributed to inadequate number of buses and inadequacies in adhering to the schedules.
The average daily Dart ridership increased from an average of 76,000 per month, four years back, well below compared to the current 200,000.
The insufficient number of buses was caused by many of them being grounded for major repairs.
Mr Lwakatare said everyday between 115-126 buses, are on the road. This interim phase has a total of 140 buses against the requirement of 305 buses for a full service.
“We continue with the process to procure a bus operator who would bring in more buses. We expect the procurement exercise to be done before the end of this year,” Dart report reads in part.
