Mark Beckford, Staff Reporter

A bus pulls up for loading on the first day of the workweek at the Half-Way Tree Transportation Centre yesterday. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer

Several confused and angry faces were evident yesterday as the first business day of the Half-Way Tree Transportation centre, in St. Andrew, got under way.

The centre, in operation for only two days, was in chaos as commuters complained loudly about long wait in lines to purchase tickets or lack of understanding of where to connect to a bus.

The station, which opens from 4 a.m., still had large crowds at 8:15 a.m. when The Gleaner arrived. Persons were seen scrambling about the level two section of the building or just staring at the new sights and multicoloured display boards.

Although customer service personnel milled through the crowd offering advice, many persons remained confused. This was also compounded by the non-opening of a ticketing booth on the first level of the station.

"The service no good. Look at the line at this time, at this hour. This place look good and thing but they need to improve how the lines move. Me nah no time fi waste because it nah go work, 'cause me have to go to work," shouted an angry male passenger.

Delay

An angry male passenger gesticulates wildy as he explains to a female passenger his grouses with the Half-Way Tree Transportation Centre on the first workday yesterday. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer

Lilieth Davidson James called in at her workplace yesterday morning to tell her employers she would not be making it in because of the delay she was experiencing.

"Two hours I am waiting on my Smart Card and I still haven't gotten through and, in addition to that, I have to pay $50 to receive the card and until now I'm still waiting," she told The Gleaner.

Victor Green, general manager of the centre, admitted there were a few hiccups, especially with the ticketing system, but said the team would be working through the problems to come up with solutions.

One of these solutions, he said, might be the temporary selling of tickets on the bus until the second ticketing booth is fully operational.

"The major challenge we faced this morning was the ticketing booth," he said. "It was overwhelming in that, you can just imagine all the people there this morning would have been buying tickets on all individual buses throughout KMTR (Kingston Metropolitan Transport Region). Now everything was converged on the ticketing office."

Shore up operations

Bill Allen, vice-president of operations at the Jamaica Urban Transit Company, said his company would be getting 40 new buses to shore up the operations.

He also said a ticketing booth, which was to be opened yesterday, would be functional by the end of the week.

"You have that everywhere it is the first morning. It's a major operation and we have done very well so far," Mr. Allen said. "Once the commuters get used to the platforms and where the buses are, efficiency will increase by at least 20 per cent."

mark.beckford@gleanerjm.com