It is estimated that by the end of the financial year in March next year, the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) will save $1.3 billion on its projected fuel bill.

Managing Director of the JUTC, Owen Ellington, who made the disclosure at the Ministry of Science, Energy, Telecommunications and Transport press conference on Thursday, July 31, said this will be achieved through the company’s diversified fuel programme.

“We have acquired into the JUTC more efficient buses. There has been a significant strategic shift away from diesel buses to CNG buses and a limited number of electric buses. This shift in our fuel composition has enabled the company to record significant savings on fuel costs,” he said.

Ellington said for many years, the company operated with an aged fleet, with the average age of a bus in the JUTC being 12 to 14 years old. However, in recent years, with the acquisition of 275 buses, the fleet is now equipped with newer buses. Of this number, 25 units are set aside to respond to any exigencies. 

“We are now poised to run out an average of 250 buses per day. We have also been testing in the fleet a hybrid bus type. We refer to it as an extended-range bus. This is the bus which is battery powered but is built with an onboard generator and when the fuel tank that supports that generator is filled… that bus has the potential of travelling up to 1,900 kilometres before it requires refuelling,” he disclosed.

“That bus has been tested in the fleet for several months and in terms of its performance efficiency, reliability, and economic cost of operations, seems a very useful prospect for fleet expansion in the future, and this gives the potential for providing not just for the KMTR, but for the rest of Jamaica. This is based on the mandate of the Government… that the JUTC should seek to connect all the parishes of Jamaica to the Urban Centre, which is Kingston,” he said.

The Managing Director said the company is now in a position to start delivering safe, reliable, regularly scheduled and commuter-centred service right across Jamaica.

“This kind of connectivity holds the potential of linking many Jamaicans from rural parishes to job opportunities in the urban centres,” Ellington said.

The press conference was held at the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ), in Kingson.