{"id":34831,"date":"2017-05-29T07:59:54","date_gmt":"2017-05-29T07:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/rwanda-public-transport-firm-yet-to-cover-all\/"},"modified":"2017-05-30T13:53:39","modified_gmt":"2017-05-30T13:53:39","slug":"rwanda-public-transport-firm-yet-to-cover-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/rwanda-public-transport-firm-yet-to-cover-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Rwanda public transport firm yet to cover all rural routes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Transport operators on major upcountry routes face increased competition from the recently-launched private-public-owned transporter, which continues to win over travellers.}<\/p>\n<p>In March, Rwanda Interlink Transport Company (RITCO) Ltd deployed the first of its fleet upcountry comprising of more than 53 ultra-modern 56-seater buses together with 30 coasters and 22 former ONATRACOM-operated buses.<\/p>\n<p>RITCO replaced the now defunct government transport company, which used to ply routes in the country\u2019s remotest parts but was bogged down by mismanagement.<\/p>\n<p>Majority of the new RITCO buses are deployed in upcountry paved routes connecting provincial urban centres to the capital, along with a few rural unpaved roads that get a lot of traffic. Though yet to expand to its targeted plan of operations, the company runs 166 buses in total.<\/p>\n<p>Rural public transport users expected RITCO\u2019s entry to first prioritise rural unpaved roads, which were abandoned by private operators after the fall of its predecessor.<\/p>\n<p>However, in a field survey carried out last week by Rwanda Today, it was established that many far-flung rural routes are yet to be connected to its transport system as the fleet is mostly visible on paved national roads already served by a number of private operators.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNormally we deploy according to demand but, we plan to deploy buses across the country,\u201d said Julius Rukundo, Ritco managing director.<\/p>\n<p>The country\u2019s over 60 licensed public transport companies and co-operatives are largely concentrated in urban and paved national roads.<\/p>\n<p>So far, an estimated 60 per cent of the routes previously served by ONATRACOM across the country have received RITCO buses and about 20 per cent are in rural, unpaved routes.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-20386 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/c2xanxoxuaakcwq.jpg\" alt=\"RITCO buses are now plying more rural routes. \" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Source:The East African <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Transport operators on major upcountry routes face increased competition from the recently-launched private-public-owned transporter, which continues to win over travellers.} In March, Rwanda Interlink Transport Company (RITCO) Ltd deployed the first of its fleet upcountry comprising of more than 53 ultra-modern 56-seater buses together with 30 coasters and 22 former ONATRACOM-operated buses. RITCO replaced the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[72,75],"byline":[2460],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-34831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-featured-news-home","tag-homenews","byline-the-east-african"],"bylines":[{"id":2460,"name":"The East African","slug":"the-east-african","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2460,"name":"The East African","slug":"the-east-african","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34831"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=34831"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=34831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}