The Port Harcourt City Bus Services (PHCBS) popularly called Skye Bank Buses in Port Harcourt City has planned an innovation to help ease transportation difficulties facing Rivers people and the commuters.
In a press briefing, Mr Olubakinde Foluso, the Operation Manager of PHCBS told journalists that the challenges facing the Port Harcourt City Buses Transport Company while trying to transform the transport system and to deliver a quality service to Rivers people and the Port Harcourt residents is the harassment by security agents, local government operatives and the illegal commercial bus drivers on Aba Road, Trans Amadi, and Ikwerre Road corridors.
Port Harcourt City Bus Services (PHCBS), a special purpose vehicle (SPV) has been set up to transform the transport operations in Port Harcourt City.
Mr Foluso expressed dissatisfaction over the lack of enforcement, direction, implementation and control of the mini buses and taxes obstructing the high operation vehicles (HOV) at the bus shelters in the city.
The scheme was designed by professionals to run under the public-private partnership (PPP) model that allow for participation of both the private sector as franchise or investors as PHCBS operator.
The main purpose of the PHCBS is to ensure rapidity of public transport as travel time would reduce, allow capacity optimization of the carriage way and increasing productivity as to reduce man hour spent in traffic. This is an initiative by Rivers State Government and Skye Bank financier of the PHCBS as a Bus Transit Scheme in the Port Harcourt Metropolis. This concept of SPV is basically a segregation of the carriageway that would give priority to the high capacity which would pave way to rapid conveyance of passengers especially at the peak periods along the dedicated routes.
The Port Harcourt City Bus delivers high quality, efficient and affordable transport services. He stated that the scheme was launched on Aba Road with the provisions of bus services, management, procurement and maintenance and has since been extended to Ikwerre Road and Trans Amadi Bus corridors.
The scheme has attracted three operators. Mr Andrew Amadasun, the business development manager, Skye Bank called on interested members of the public in the road transport business.