NYS bus service is a welcome initiative

A National Youth Service bus in traffic along Racecourse road where Githurai residents board their passenger buses. The youth buses are offering cheap fare during peak hours which is a move by the Goverment to tame the rogue industry that hikes fares unnecessary and to also curb shortage. [23/3/2018, George Njunge/Standard]

If there is one headache that commuters in Nairobi have learnt to live with, it is the matatu mode of transport because of the unruly and unpredictable nature of the operators. Not that many Nairobi residents who rely on mass transport enjoy the headache, but the options are very few since the commuter train does not serve a wide area of the exponentially growing city. But if they have been praying for a better option, their prayers must have been answered by the National Government, which, on Thursday, through the National Youth Service (NYS) entered the mass transport sector with a dual aim of alleviating the suffering of the Nairobi commuter and also helping the Government agency find ways of raising funds and not relying on the Exchequer. 

The buses, which are being manned by uniformed — and that denotes disciplined — NYS personnel and which are cleaner, and charge cheaper fares per trip regardless of the destination, have rattled the matatu operators and there are reports that they will sabotage it because they feel that the buses will be favoured by traffic police officers. What the profit-driven matatu operators fail to understand is that most Nairobi commuters prefer order and if that is offered to them, they will chose it over chaos, and thus the matatu chaps will have to improve on their services if they want to retain customers. The NYS bus service is a welcome idea and should be well managed so that it can achieve the dual aim of easing Nairobi’s transport nightmares and also helping the Government agency reduce reliance on the Exchequer.