The Government has allocated $1.3 billion towards the acquisition of spare parts and special tools for the maintenance of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) fleet of buses.

The sum is provided for in the 2017-18 Estimates of Expenditure now before the House of Representatives.

To be implemented by the Ministry of Transport and Mining with funding provided through the Government’s Consolidated Fund, the project is part of a raft of measures to improve the public passenger transportation sector.

The procurement of the spare parts is intended to enhance the JUTC’s capacity to effect repairs to its fleet of buses as part of its preventive maintenance strategy.

In the meantime, $10 million has been set aside in the Estimates to undertake and complete a feasibility assessment for the proposed Portmore Transportation Centre/Hub.

This allocation is required to commence the second phase of the project (project development), public relations and community sensitisation sessions; and to assist with the pre-project baseline data collection and research execution.

It is anticipated that the facility will greatly improve traffic management in Portmore to ensure the efficient movement of vehicles and facilitate better service planning for the transit company.

Additionally, some $671,000 has been budgeted for the Trifold National Transport Repository Project comprising the Transport Statistics Database, the Transport Research Databank and the Geographic Information System (GIS) Database.

The anticipated targets include: development of a joint interface for the GIS; design and implementation of a Transport Research Databank as well as a Transport Statistics Database; restructuring of the Ministry’s GIS Database and establishment of linkages to statistics and research databases.