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Alone on the road amid increasing passenger traffic with restrictions in movement being progressively relaxed over the past six weeks, Zupco is clearly overwhelmed by demand.

The public passenger transporter is the only operator allowed to provide urban transport services after the Government banned private commuter buses as a way to limit the risk of spread of Covid-19.

When the lockdown started on March 30, workers in the essential services sector – nurses, doctors, laboratory technicians, pharmacists, soldiers, police officers, journalists, farmers, farm workers, mine workers and so on — were allowed to report for work daily.

However, not all of the workers have personal cars and not all employers have the capacity to transport their employees from home to work and back.

Therefore, Zupco has been the only available mode of transport for workers without their own cars and those whose employers cannot provide the service.

In the first three weeks of the total national lockdown and in the two weeks added on later, Zupco’s 70-seater-plus buses were managing to provide the service since only essential service workers were commuting. The idea to allow Zupco buses to move was that it was easy to enforce social distancing on them. Instead of them carrying a full load, they must ferry not more than 50 passengers. However, after the Government further relaxed the restrictions by downgrading the lockdown to level two, demand for public transport overtook the buses. Government’s response was to allow Zupco kombis to return to operate alongside the larger buses. To allow for social distancing, the Zupco kombis should carry a maximum of eight people at any given time.

Still the 500 commuter omnibuses and 507 buses that are in service in all towns and cities countrywide aren’t coping with demand.

As a result, long queues at boarding places in the suburbs and in towns continue to be common. Many workers, having failed to find space on Zupco buses or kombis, are being forced to walk over long distances to and from work. This is a huge inconvenience, so commuters are looking up to the Government for a solution to their transport blues.

In Bulawayo, Tshova Mubaiwa Transport Corporation, Bulawayo Public Transport Association and Bulawayo City Transit, apparently feeling the pinch of going for six weeks with no income, have complained that commuters are often stranded while the organisations’ kombis are parked. They therefore, are itching to be allowed back into business.

Commuters’ demands are valid but we argue that it will be imprudent at this stage to bring back Tshova Mubaiwa Transport Corporation, Bulawayo Public Transport Association and Bulawayo City Transit. Private operators naturally seek to maximise profits by packing as many passengers as possible into their vehicles. Social distancing is therefore secondary. Furthermore, it is impossible for authorities to confirm that indeed private operators are complying with the rules to disinfect their vehicles twice daily, provide hand sanitisers and check commuters’ body temperature as they board their vehicles.

No one wants to risk a spike in new Covid-19 cases through a premature reinstatement of private public transporters — Tshova Mubaiwa Transport Corporation, Bulawayo Public Transport Association and Bulawayo City Transit and others elsewhere around the country. No one knows how the infection will progress although it has appreciably slowed in the country lately.

It is difficult to be out of business for so long, we acknowledge, but Tshova Mubaiwa and company must understand their limitations and agree to keep their vehicles parked for now while other measures are being maintained to contain Covid-19.

Zupco is providing a subsidised service, so profit is not the motivation. Instead, the motivation is to provide a reliable and affordable service to the commuting public.

The only prudent solution to the prevailing transport blues in urban areas is for the Government to bring in more private buses and kombis to operate under the Zupco franchise. It is good that there is already movement in that direction. Yesterday, Zupco called on private omnibus operators of good standing to approach its depots countrywide for possible enlistment under the franchise arrangement. Private transport operators who are grumbling over stranded commuters are encouraged to take advantage of the call for them to be back in business.

A greater Zupco presence is necessary also so that boarding sites are decongested and social distancing there possible. Commuters would be spared the agony of walking long distances to and from work or being crowded at the backs or trucks to be able to move around.