Transport minister says bus flow was smooth for start of school year

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Minister of Energy, Transport and Telecommunications, Daryl Vaz, has reported that Monday morning’s bus flow for the first day of the 2026/27 school year was a smooth one, especially in the Corporate Area. During his address to the media inside the Half-Way Tree Transportation Centre, Vaz expressed how elated he was that threats of a no-movement day and rumours of a disruption in energy supply were dispelled before the morning. “I am pleased [and] happy with what I’m seeing on the road.

The public transportation is out, the JUTC and commuters are out,” he said. Overall, he said 99 school buses were rolled out across Jamaica and covered rural parishes with 86 routes and 126 schools. “So, we are almost operating at optimum as it relates to the Rural School Bus system,” Vaz said.

“Overall, I’m very happy to say that JUTC has rolled out 250 buses this morning. That is optimum for them but not optimum for what we need, which is why I’m happy that we are still in the process of negotiating with the Ministry of Finance for the additional 100 school buses that I committed, and the last 100 of the 300 JUTC buses, which I hope to have both sets here for back-to-school 2027/28,” he said. With regard to complaints of there not being adequate buses on some routes with great demand, he said plans are in place for reports to be taken from commuters to better guide the decision-making process.

“I am going to implement, for the rest of this week, a dedicated JUTC member and Transport Authority to be here every morning to take the complaints, so that we can tweak and make sure that we reallocate buses for the popular routes, and make sure that wait time is cut down,” he explained. The minister said that based on the reports from the Transport Authority and the police, there were isolated pockets of disruption, particularly in Westmoreland, “which is no surprise to me, in relation to certain routes”. “I suspect that based on what is happening across the country, that we will see that resume to normality by morning,” he said.