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THE GLEANER, THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 2017
E12
The Jamaica Urban Transit Company
(JUTC) forms an important plank in the
efforts of the Ministry of Transport and
Works to transport commuters about their
daily business within the Kingston
Metropolitan Transport Region (KMTR). To
assist the company in this thrust, it operates
from five depots within the Kingston
Metropolitan Transport Region (KMTR).
These are located in Portmore, Spanish
Town, Asheneim Road, Lyndhurst Road,
Rockfort. The company also uses the Half-
Way Tree Transport Centre as a major hub
within the city. With a roll-out of an average
450 buses transporting an average of
250,000 persons daily, the JUTC is the sin-
gle largest carrier of passengers within the
KMTR.
Among the major achievements of the com-
pany since February of last year have been:
NEW BUSES IN FLEET
• The introduction of new buses to serve the
hilly St Andrew routes. Thirty-five new
Golden Dragon 39 seater units were intro-
duced into the fleet last September. These
are better able to manage the narrow and
more physically challenging terrain across
upper St Andrew; additionally, these units
are more fuel efficient than the typical
JUTC buses.
SMARTER CARDS
• Expansion of the Smarter Cards Point-of-
Sale (POS) Network. Since May, 2016,
some 28 new locations have been added to
the network, making for a total of 111
locations across the KMTR. This allows
commuters to access with relative ease top-
up locations anywhere across the KMTR.
AVL SYSTEM
• Revamping of the Automatic Vehicle
Locator (AVL) System. The system is being
tested for use to better able to monitor the
location of all JUTC buses. With this
revamping, it is expected that commuters
will ultimately be able to use their smart-
phones to access scheduling information
concerning buses. A major component of
this system is the ability to monitor driv-
ing behaviour with real-time alerts. This
will allow one to be able to monitor
instances of speeding, idling, hard corner-
ing, braking and acceleration with a view
to having corrective measures implement-
ed.
IMPROVED RUN-OUT
• Improvement of run-out numbers. Having
inherited shaky and almost non-existent
arrangements for steady supply of parts for
the JUTC fleet heading towards the mid-
dle of 2016, the new management of the
company worked hard to regain stability
with bus run-out numbers which were
falling day by day. Run-out numbers have
remained steadily between 400 and 445
units and new spare parts are being pre-
ordered on a structured basis to ensure
stability in the maintenance and rehabili-
tation demands within the fleet.
REPAIR OF BUSES
• Repair of buses. In stark contrast to a bus
rehabilitation programme that expended
millions of dollars without rehabilitation
of a single bus prior to May, 2016, the new
management of the JUTC has already
rehabilitated and brought back into service
six buses that the programme had initially
targeted. This was done without budgetary
support through the grit and determina-
tion of the Engineering Department, and
with the requisite support, another 25
buses from the derelict lot can be similarly
rehabilitated and brought back into active
service.
PAYMENT OF EMPLOYEE BENEFITS
• Very significantly, the new management
has been able, after less than a year at the
helm, to sharply reduce the amounts out-
standing in respect of employee benefits,
dating back to 2015. There is now a clear
schedule for the payment of the remaining
amounts owing to the employees, with this
scheduled to be completed over a two (2)
month period, ending March 2017.
IMPROVE ACCIDENT INVESTIGATON
• Strengthening of the Accident Investigative
Department. With some 1, 400 outstanding
accident claims found when the new man-
agement took office, and very limited
organized effort to bring down the number
up to that point, the company has since
endeavoured to systematically address the
challenge. Consequently, a totally new
Accident Investigation arrangement has
been developed, with a centralised system
with both extreme accountability.
THE JUTC
“Making your ride safe”
Within the Ministry and Transport and
Mining family, the Jamaica Ultimate Tyre
Company enjoys a special place; special
because it is one of the companies which con-
tinues to punch way above its proverbial
weight, notwithstanding its size and almost
‘under the radar’ type of visibility. It is a
wholly owned self-sustained subsidiary of
the Jamaica Urban Transit Company
(JUTC) which happens to be its largest cus-
tomer.
Its core business involves the manufacturing
of retread tyres using a process with the
application of used customers’ tyre casings
or imported high-level casings from the
USA, Japan and Europe, and then retread-
ing them. The emphasis is on retread tyres
for commercial vehicles.
Services offered by the company include:
• Retreading of tyres for JUTC, SUV, trucks
and buses
• Wheel alignment and balancing
• Front-end inspection
• Tyre repairs
• Sale of high-quality stock retread tyres –e.g
-11r22.5;100-20;10r etc
• The sale of a wide range of popular sized
new passenger/commercial tyres for resale
• Sale of batteries
ACHIEVEMENTS
• For the fiscal year (2015-2016), the compa-
ny generated profits of 78.4% (in fact, the
company has been making a profit consis-
tently for the last seven years).
• For the first nine months of the fiscal year
(April – December, 2016) profits are 55%
above the budget and are expected to con-
tinue on that trajectory up until March,
2017.
• As a government entity, all statutary obli-
gations – NIS, NHT, Income Tax, Annual
Reports, Corporate Plans etc have been
fulfilled.
• Retreading Plant though faced with chal-
lenges caused by aging equipment, contin-
ues and in some cases exceed 10,080 tyres
annually.
• Use of advertisements and other media
such as flyers, direct mail out, email,
brochures, radio along with positive cus-
tomer service and marketing activities to
drive growth.
JAMAICA ULTIMATE TYRE COMPANY
“WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN TYRES”