Transport companies strategise on night trips
In a determined effort to debunk the remours making rounds that long distance transportation companies have stopped night trip because of armed robbery attacks, major stakeholders in the business say they are still operating but with a different strategy.
Investigation revealed that rather than stopping night journeys, major transport companies like Chisco, ABC, Mbanefo, Ifesinachi and Young shall grow among others, have restructured their night trips by shifting the journey schedule to ensure that their buses do not run into armed robbery operations.
For some of the companies, the change in departure and arrival period helps to destablise targeted operations by man of the underworld.
In a chat with some of the managers of the transport companies, they said for safety reasons the fleets that run the night trips now take off from the station at 5pm instead of 8.pm. This arrangement they explained ensures that buses would have gone past all those areas that are regarded as bad spots before it gets dark.
“Our night operations” according to Mbanefo Transport Manager, Jude Onwumere, “are in full swing.” Although there were rumours heightened by expectations that the government may ban night journeys at the height of the subtle debate last year on whether night travels should continue, he said there was never any ban by the government.
“What happened is that certain bus companies who have lost men and materials to robbers during night travels decided to stay action, a sort of cooling off to strategise. Some of those bus companies have since commenced operations.”
But Onwurnere said Mbanefo has never stopped night operations, and added that what they simply did was to restructure the journey time so as to avoid the bad spots before night falls.
He said the rumour carried by people affected the number of customers traveling at night. “People call to ask whether we have commenced night operations and I just wonder. I tell them we never stopped.”
According to him, the reason some transport companies stopped night travels and returned again is because they have come to realise that night travels is what the customers want and you can not do otherwise.
Meanwhile, the Chisco manager who spoke to The Tide said the company has repackaged to neutralise even the new competition that is emerging from the small buses segment. Most commuters these days like to travel by small buses because they are fast and neat and so they can get to their destinations faster.
For Chisco however, instead of investing in small buses which is a high risk, Chisco has decided to change its line of fleet. Recently, he said the company brought in about 25 air conditioned buses. With these set of buses, he said it would be difficult for any body that had traveled with it to think of traveling with any other bus.
He maintained that the company decided to invest in these buses because of the change in the level of their clientele. “Our Clients are now more in the middle class category. So they know what they want and they go for it. What we are giving them is what they have asked for” he said.
On the issue of security, Onwumere said the Luxury Bus Operators of Nigeria (LUBOAN), has partnered with the security agencies and are doing much about security to make the high ways safer.
Speaking earlier, the ABC personnel who preferred anonymity, said there is no way night trips will be banned because most businesses are done at night, business men the world over use the night to transact business in other to catch up with other burning issues in the day.
He appealed that the government should make the roads safer by equipping the various security and safety agencies in the country and also by ensuring that the long stretch of forests along the high ways which serves as hideout for criminals are properly utilised either as a farm settlement or by building hotels, petrol stations and police stations.
This according to him will go a long way in curbing armed robbery attacks on buses that operate at nights. Concerning his company’s stance on night trips he said, night trips cannot be stopped, therefore his company is taking appropriate safety measures to profect lives and property.