Maxi taxi operators to begin nationwide shutdown Monday

Thou­sands of com­muters across Trinidad are ex­pect­ed to face ma­jor trans­porta­tion dis­rup­tions from Mon­day af­ter maxi taxi op­er­a­tors con­firmed they will pro­ceed with a na­tion­wide with­draw­al of ser­vice fol­low­ing un­suc­cess­ful talks with Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

Sec­re­tary of the Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Vick­ash Kisoon­dath, said op­er­a­tors from four of the coun­try’s five ma­jor maxi taxi routes have com­mit­ted to the ac­tion, with school trans­port providers al­so ex­pect­ed to par­tic­i­pate.

“This ac­tion is go­ing to hap­pen,” Kisoon­dath said on Fri­day. “Op­er­a­tors have made up their minds. We can­not con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing un­der these con­di­tions while promis­es keep get­ting pushed back.”

The shut­down is ex­pect­ed to be­gin on Mon­day and con­tin­ue through­out the week un­less au­thor­i­ties pro­vide writ­ten com­mit­ments ad­dress­ing the op­er­a­tors’ con­cerns.

Kisoon­dath said an­oth­er meet­ing with Min­istry of Works and Trans­port of­fi­cials on Thurs­day failed to pro­duce con­crete re­sults on sev­er­al long­stand­ing is­sues af­fect­ing the sec­tor.

“We met yes­ter­day ex­pect­ing progress, but once again there were on­ly dis­cus­sions and no firm ac­tion,” he said. “Every month we at­tend meet­ings and hear the same thing — that the mat­ters are al­most com­plet­ed and sit­ting on a desk. Op­er­a­tors are tired of hear­ing that.”

He said op­er­a­tors had spent months at­tempt­ing to re­solve the is­sues through for­mal chan­nels, in­clud­ing ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee meet­ings with min­istry of­fi­cials and the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary.

“We tried diplo­ma­cy, di­a­logue and pa­tience first,” Kisoon­dath said. “This is not just one route com­plain­ing. Four ma­jor routes are stand­ing to­geth­er be­cause these prob­lems are af­fect­ing op­er­a­tors na­tion­wide.”

Among the con­cerns raised by op­er­a­tors are the 65 km/h speed re­stric­tion on high­ways, in­creased Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route (PBR) pass fees, com­pe­ti­tion from PH ve­hi­cles and re­stric­tions on ac­cess to cities and bor­oughs af­ter hours.

“One of the biggest frus­tra­tions is the high­way speed lim­it,” Kisoon­dath said. “We have been re­quest­ing an ad­just­ment for years be­cause it af­fects trav­el times and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.”

He al­so crit­i­cised what op­er­a­tors view as in­ad­e­quate reg­u­la­tion of PH ve­hi­cles.

“The PH sys­tem was in­tend­ed for rur­al dis­tricts and af­ter-hours trans­port, but now they are com­pet­ing di­rect­ly with maxi op­er­a­tors on es­tab­lished routes,” he said. “We are heav­i­ly reg­u­lat­ed and face sig­nif­i­cant op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es, while il­le­gal com­pe­ti­tion con­tin­ues to grow.”

Kisoon­dath said ris­ing costs are plac­ing in­creas­ing fi­nan­cial pres­sure on op­er­a­tors.

“The Gov­ern­ment has to un­der­stand that op­er­a­tors have fam­i­lies to sup­port and bills to pay,” he said. “We can­not con­tin­ue ab­sorb­ing ris­ing costs while our con­cerns are ig­nored.”

He warned that school trans­porta­tion ser­vices would al­so be af­fect­ed, as con­ces­sion op­er­a­tors have pledged sup­port for the shut­down.

“The coun­try will im­me­di­ate­ly feel the im­pact if maxi taxis stop op­er­at­ing,” Kisoon­dath said. “Thou­sands of peo­ple de­pend on this ser­vice every day.”

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the in­con­ve­nience to com­muters, he ap­pealed for pub­lic un­der­stand­ing.

“We know peo­ple re­ly on us and we ap­pre­ci­ate the pub­lic’s sup­port,” he said. “But op­er­a­tors have been strug­gling with these un­re­solved prob­lems for years.”

Kisoon­dath said op­er­a­tors are now de­mand­ing writ­ten com­mit­ments from au­thor­i­ties rather than fur­ther ver­bal as­sur­ances.

“At this point, op­er­a­tors want some­thing of­fi­cial in writ­ing,” he said. “Ver­bal promis­es are no longer enough. We need ac­tion.”