The agonizing story of the public transport in the city of Dar es Salaam

IT is a miserable story when somebody describes the mode of public transport in the city of Dar es Salaam, you might be surprised to hear how it looks like, the types of commuter buses and how drivers operates with some of them not in possession of the valid driving licenses. The operation generally is very chaotic and unsafe beyond one’s imagination and the most disturbing thing of it all is that, it’s inconvenienced by traffic jam and this is happening almost within the main city roads, more notoriously during morning and evening picking hours. The persisting situation has become a critical agony which continues to haunt commuters most of whom low income earners whose movements largely depends on this mode of public transport. It is not strange at a bus stage to see a commuter bus slowly rolling in its wake of a disturbing trail of exhaust fumes, while in a slow motion you could see passengers gearing up for the inevitable clash for seats and space inside. As the bus stops what follows is a battle of wills as those in the outside tries to squeeze to find their way through every available opening and sometimes making it impossible for those trapped inside to get off. Pushing and jostling among the crowded passengers is the order of the day and nobody could be heard complaining about it, and funny enough the doorway proves to be narrow as the weary passengers struggles to pass through to scramble for spaces inside. The situation at the moment creates a commotion that paves the way for pick pockets and petty thieves around to work their magic. Those who manage to get on board settle for the trip and those who haven’t are left waiting for the next bus to come. It’s very shaming as one might sometimes be obstructed by large crowds of people scrambling to get into a bus, you might as well be pulled away and a man may elbow you out of the way so that he could get on the bus first. This is how it happens during morning and evening pick hours. Ironically the passengers themselves don’t seem to mind the inconveniences as they have become so accustomed to this mistreatment until they consider it the norm. If you get irritated that someone has stepped on you in such a overcrowded bus, you will only make it worse if you attempt to castigate the person who has done it. Otherwise you will be subjected to scorn to the effect that someone might say if you didn’t want to be stepped on, “then you could have just hired a taxi or bought your own car”. The irritated people are always told of such scornful words. For those who are used to this hard side reality, they know white clothes especially in the rainy season is a no go zone, otherwise you will honour yourself, what with mud and all the crease your clothes will get? It’s astonishing also to notice that, as the bus is coming in a slow motion as if to stop to make a U turn, all of a sudden the driver speeds away leaving the stranded passengers in their mouth open wondering why it is so. The driver never let anyone on board may be for fear of school children who happens to be in large numbers at the bus stage. The running away simply means that, the bus operators are shunning away from students who they do not want to board their busses owing to the fact that, they pay smaller amount of the fare and yet to make it worse are many at the bus stop. The reason given by them is more fictitious other than running away from students. On seeing what the driver has done, people who are used to such harassments are running along with it looking at the conductor who peers back at them through the window while the door is closed. People are panting as they keep on running here and there like a marathon race. Others gives up, disgusted, still a number of people runs after the bus for some distance until it stopped. With self congratulatory smile on their sweaty faces, they watched as the door is opened. But before the first person could set a foot on the bus the conductor declares that the bus was not going anywhere. What is it? The outraged mob at the door cries out and a conductor answers, “We are going to the garage.” Or sometimes you might hear them saying that, the bus has been caught by the traffic police. Sometimes you might manage to get into a bus to commute to work and never know where a delay might pop up. It could be a traffic policeman on the road who allows more traffic cars from one direction flow more than the recommended time, a faulty engine on an aged bus, Presidential motorcade and elsewhere is also a growing menace or anything related to it. A traffic police officer may stop the bus for some other reasons basically known to him. But you can’t blame for they are simply doing his job. However, on the course of dong so, he or she will cause a delay for minutes at a time. Often the delay takes the form of routine checks that these officers of the law carry out. The officer will stop the daladala and circle it, then jotting down things on the notebook for further reference and then calls a driver beside for private talks. Apart from such normal harassments facing commuters in the city, there is a growing habit which has been formed by some operators. This is shortening their routes a situation that forces many commuters to pay their fares twice or thrice as much as for the single trip journey. Juliana Mshombe (20), a lady who works as a house maid for somebody at Masaki residential area in Kinondoni district, Dar es Salaam region, used to experience a myriad of hardships when boarding a daladala commuter bus in the morning in order to rush to her work place, But the situation changes in the evening when getting back home after a whole day’s work. She has to spend almost about Sh. 1,200 instead of Sh. 500 for a single trip journey paid as a normal fare from her home at Mbagala Rangi tatu suburb to Masaki. Unlike in the morning pick hours, the situation changes and becomes worse during evening pick hours. This is mainly due to fewer but disorganized trend of daladala operations which is so alarming in the city at such unlikely time of a cool evening which is characterized by chaotic operations. This situation is largely contributed by illegal habit being practiced by few daladala operators who have developed a chronic tendency of shortening their routes in some suburbs within the city of Dar es Salaam and tend to indiscriminately increasing the transport fare during night hours. The perpetrators do such a malpractice on the pretext to cover their operational costs and use such an opportunity after seeing a multitude of passengers who at that time gathers at bus stage waiting for transport to take them to their various respective places of domiciles. But who really cares? After all public transport seems to be meant for people of low income ability. Meanwhile: The Dar es Salaam Commuter Bus Association (DARCOBOA) is pushing for an increase in fares despite of the current fare noting that is too little to run the operational costs.

Traffic jam in Dar es Salaam city, Tanzania

This is an abuse of rule of law which culminates to the denial of human rights especially when innocent passengers are forced under certain circumstances to pay twice or thrice by connecting their journeys contrary to the normal fare which has been imposed by Surface and Marine Transport Authority (SUMATRA). Interviewed drivers who practices such habit complains that, citing together with other factors, the high operational costs such as fuel which is being hiked now and then an aspect that has contributed a lot to the miserable conditions facing most city commuters. Although the growing situation is quite intolerable and a weary task indeed, but is a normal practice for others but not Sofia Mshelela a resident of Gongo la Mboto in Ilala municipality who has to wake up everyday at dawn in order to avoid inconveniences which occurs. Although she wakes up much earlier, still she has to connect her journey in order to arrive at her work place Mikocheni industrial area 30 kilometers away from her home. The journey which normally takes 45 minutes’ drive, have to spend more than two to three hours on the road due to the increased traffic jam which has become unavoidable situation in the city of Dar es Salaam during such hours. She has to dig deeper into her pockets in order to afford the long trip journey that forces her to pay twice or thrice as much as the normal fare rate introduced by the government. This situation is aggravated by notorious habit commonly being practiced by commuter bus operators by shortening their routes. Looking at the nature of the commuter buses in Dar es Salaam, leave alone other towns in the country, one would wonder if it is easy SUMATRA to continue witnessing the increasing level of disorders in the sector. Cornered for comment, SUMATRA’s Public Affairs Manager, David Mziray who admitted being aware of such violations, said his institution usually penalizes the offenders and sometimes take legal actions and among the penalties imposed to them is to revoke the driver’s licenses if found notorious of such malpractice. According to Dar es Salaam police traffic Chief, Mohammed Mpinga, his force is doing all it can in order to curb the vice. But due to few police traffic deployed on the road, and coupled by timeframe for which most daladala violates the rules, it has been difficulty to control the situation. Despite of the Dar es Salaam city is currently having a population of nearly five million people, and is served by a pantry number of about 7,000 buses, but despite of this great number unless commuter buses with bigger capacity have to be brought in order to ease an area that is more congested says Mwanaidi Kivuyo, a Dar city based lawyer. According to her, without making such an arrangement earlier the city would continue experiencing transport problem and the operations will continue causing huge delays for people who travel to and from the city suburbs. For the past 20 years the government has been debating expanding Dar es Salaam’s city roads and railway network but finally approved a plan in July during Parliamentary budget sessions of this year after having discovered that, workers spend four to six hours a day commuting to and from work. Further environmental pollution by motor vehicles causes diseases such as cancer, which costs huge sums of money to treat are among other factors discovered to be a menace caused during traffic jam. A loss of Sh. 4 billion is incurred everyday as workers are forced to spend many hours on the road on their way to work places. With the grandiose Dar es Salaam Rapid Transit (Dart) system still under construction and a long way off, it is a blessing that the concerned authorities in the Ministry of Transport in the country has officially made a commendable job to make use of the existing railway infrastructure so as to ease transport problems in the city. Granted, the railway network is not that extensive in Dar es Salaam, but it could be a good start in efforts to ease commuter problems and congestion in the city says the transport Minister in charge Dr. Harrison Mwakyembe. The introduction of railway commuter services in Dar es Salaam city would have the double advantage of providing Dar es Salaam residents with an additional transport system and earning struggling Tanzania Railways Limited much-needed cash. According to the Deputy Minister for Transport, Charles Tizeba reasons for introducing city train is to reduce the increased traffic jam in the city of Dar es Salaam a situation which occurs during pick hours. In a move to ease traffic jam in Dar es Salaam city, the government has set aside Sh. 580 billion for a road project which will involve construction of flyovers at major highway junctions later in the city. The Minister for Works, John Pombe Maghufuli said recently during parliamentary debates that, the importance of the project could be overemphasized.