St Lucia Public Transportation:
Bus Driver Surveys
By Elizabeth Ferris
29 January2010
Table of Contents
Page
Introduction
3
Background/Previous Work
4
Project Concept
5
Work in St Lucia
6
Results and Implications
8
Future Recommendations
10
References
11
Introduction
In February 2009 Adhara King, Transportation Minister of St Lucia, issued a press release calling for improvements to the countries public transportation system. His particular focus was on the mini bus, or jitney model (www.stlucia.gov.lc/pr2009 ). King issued this PR report through St Lucia’s government website where the Minister said the challenge within the transportation sector is not about acquiring diverse modes of public transport, but to maximize the efficiency of the current system. He discussed current problems they are facing, such as the lack of a regular schedule and there not being service at all hours of the day. This press release is a good example of the countries desire to better understand their public transport in order to improve upon it. It is possible that looking into established systems abroad along with local data could lead to new ways of thinking about public transportation in St Lucia. Ideally this would promote the islands development by increasing mobility.
As a Caribbean island St Lucia faces many unique transportation challenges and opportunities. A huge issue is effective land use when considering changes to the current public transportation system. Research shows that effective land use in transportation systems can improve the development of an area (Brennan and Hoene, 2002). Part VI of this article focuses on transportation related development among several cities in the United States and compares the integration of transportation and land use there. This has implications for St Lucian transportation as on an island land is scarce and therefore efficient land use is crucial. Because there is such a limited amount of space in St Lucia and a minimal amount of quality paved roads this needs to be taken into consideration when thinking about mobility on the island. Also, many places in the United States have been identified as successful models of rural public transportation (Brown and Stommes, 2004). These researchers used their findings to write a proposal to the Federal Job Access and Reverse Commute (JARC) committee on ways to increase mobility in low income, rural America. This serves as an example of a proposal written to a government about improving rural transportation. That is the end goal of the transportation research in St Lucia. Also the successful models identified could be looked to assess the feasibility of each model for use in St Lucia
Background/Previous Work
In the past UVM students have participated in facilitating transportation research in St Lucia through helping design a survey for consumer who utilize the jitney system and provided survey training as part of the course CDAE 295 (DeSisto, Rosendo and Corey, 2007). Consumers identified several problems in the current public transportation system through this survey including time constraints, cost, safety and efficiency (pg10). When the final findings from this survey were presented the President of the Mini Bus Association suggested that to get a complete picture of the transportation system the driver’s opinions would be as important as the consumer’s were.
In response to that concern the Ministry of Commerce in St Lucia has been working along with the Transportation Ministry to develop a survey to conduct with mini bus drivers as a means of gathering data. The focus will be to look at these and other issues related to public transit focusing on getting responses from the jitney drivers. The island has a strong drivers association that will make it possible to survey drivers from all parts of the country, both rural and urban. The results of this survey along with a past survey analyzing consumer’s responses to public transportation questions will be used to propose changes to the mini bus system with the goal of making it more cost effective, more efficient and finding feasible improvements to the mini bus system. This data will then be presented to the partners in country at the Ministry of Commerce along with recommendations for further action. The goal of my work and research will be to aid the Ministries in developing this survey before arriving as well as doing surveying and analysis while in St Lucia.
The relationship that has been built through past years of this project between UVM and the St Lucian Ministry of Commerce promotes the UN Millennium Development Goal of creating global partnerships for development. UVM stands to gain insights from this research as well as Vermont looks to improve upon its own public transportation system. Working on a project that could mutually benefit both parties strengthens a cross cultural relationship, encouraging global partnerships.
Project Concept
This project design consisted of two interconnected parts. The first part was survey development and administration. The survey development was done prior to the actual trip. Throughout the course of the semester I communicated with my project partners in St Lucia to review the survey they were developing and make suggestions. They had begun this process prior to my involvement so I only worked minimally on it. The majority of the survey was designed by my project partners. After working through several drafts we came to a final product was what the Department of Consumer Affairs wanted to use to survey bus drivers. This survey we created was also used in the preliminary surveying I was involved with during my stay in St Lucia. The project concept included completing 80 surveys along with my project partners during the first week of the trip.
The second major part of this project design is survey data analysis and continued training in data analysis for members of the Department of Consumer Affairs. After collecting some preliminary data the data needed to be interpreted and analyzed so we could make some preliminary recommendations. We planned to do this the second week of the project. I would work on coding the data while teaching my project partners how to do this. We then wanted to run some basis statistical tests to begin the process of interpreting the data. My main goal was to teach how to use the software while my project partner’s goals were to actually use the software and run the tests themselves.
Work in St Lucia
The plan for the first week of work was to complete 80 bus driver surveys in order to gather the preliminary data we needed. These surveys were conducted by me and two of the Consumer Affairs Department officials: Verlette JN Louis and Lyra Thomas-Joseph. All of the surveys were conducted in the Castries area at six different bus stops. Each of the bus stops was representative of a route that started outside of Castries and ended there. The stops we surveyed came to Castries from Barbanou, Gros Islet, Te Roche, La Clery, Bisee and Grand Reive. A survey sample size for each bus route was determined by the total number of permits per route. The amount of drivers surveyed per route ranged from twelve to twenty.
When the bus drivers reach Castries from their starting point they wait in town for their buses to fill up again and head back. This means that the drivers are waiting around the bus stops sometimes for most of the day so it was easy to find drivers waiting in their bus or in a common shelter at the stop. Each day we would meet up at the office, gather surveys and discuss our plan of action. We would show up to the stop, all within walking distance of the office, introduce our selves and ask who was interested in taking the survey. We were met with a variety of reactions and responses, but generally they were friendly and willing to participate. Even the drivers who were less enthusiastic about our presence, perhaps responding with antigovernment sentiments were encouraged to participate. We made sure they knew that if they had negative views of the transportation system and government policies then their opinions were very important. It could be their responses to the survey questions that helped to make the changes they wanted to see. In the end only a few driver refused to participate, which of course was their choice.
The drivers were very interesting to talk with and listen to. They all had poignant views and thoughts as to how the system could be improved to the benefit of both customers and drivers. Each survey took an average of twenty minutes to complete. The questions were one word answers to short answers, but most of the interviewee’s we eager to talk about the subject and would give detailed responses. Below is a sample section of questions from the survey.
Section 1 – General Perceptions
1. What is the make and model of the vehicle you operate?
________________________________________________________________________
2. How would you categorize the size of buses imported for public transportation in Saint Lucia?
(a) Too large
(b) Too small
(c) Satisfactory
(d) Other (specify) ____________________________
3. How
would you rate the suspension of vehicles imported into Saint Lucia for Public
Transportation?
Very
bad Bad Fair Good Very
good
We did surveys four full days of the first week and had to run on to Monday of the second week to finish them.
The final days of the project were spent in the office to do data entry, analysis and training. First I was able to download SPSS software onto computers in the office. Several member of this department had been to UVM in the past, involved in research methods trainings where they were introduced to this software and how to use it to analyze survey data. The problem was that without the program they were unable to put into practice what they had learned. Once people had the program we went over a brief refresher tutorial and practiced using the program with the survey data we had collected. I worked one on one with my project partners on doing data entry and coding in order to begin statistical analysis. While this was not something that was finished by the end of the week the people I worked with felt comfortable finishing what was started on their own by that time.
Results and Implications
The 80 surveys were completed that we intended to do as a preliminary sample of the entire sample population. This number of surveys was enough for us to begin looking at the data and make preliminary suggestions and findings in a meaningful way and was not too many to complete in the time we had available. This was a good start to this project and helped them get well under way with the surveying part of this project. Because the total sample population is 297 my project partners will be continuing the surveying until all have been completed.
All of the preliminary data was entered from these surveys leading to some initial findings. The format used came from what was used in the final report from the consumer surveys data. Below is a sample of some of the data gathered so far.
|
1) What is the Make and Model of the vehicle you operate? |
|
|
|
Response |
Frequency |
Percent |
|
Mitsubishi |
9 |
11.25% |
|
Toyota |
54 |
67.50% |
|
Nissan |
16 |
20% |
|
Mazda |
1 |
1.25% |
|
|
|
|
|
2) How would you categorize the size of buses imported for public transportation in Saint Lucia? |
|
|
|
Response |
Frequency |
Percent |
|
Too large |
2 |
2.50% |
|
Too Small |
21 |
26.25% |
|
Satisfactory |
55 |
68.75% |
|
Other |
2 |
2.50% |
|
3) How would you rate the suspension of the vehicles imported into Saint Lucia for public transportation? |
|
|
|
Response |
Frequency |
Percent |
|
Very bad |
4 |
5% |
|
Bad |
6 |
7.50% |
|
Fair |
20 |
25% |
|
Good |
34 |
42.50% |
|
Very Good |
15 |
18.75% |
|
No Answer |
1 |
1.25% |
Some trends stood out in this preliminary data. 82% of drivers surveyed agree there should be a central bus terminal in Castries. When asked if they were satisfied with the conduct of passengers riding the buses 82% of drivers answered no or sometimes. 74% of drivers surveyed said there should be an increase in police presence at the bus stands. Because these findings only represent about one fourth of the total sample population they are just a prelude to the complete findings. However it is interesting to note the original trends to see how they will compare to the final results.
Future Recommendations
The first step in the continuation of this project needs to be completing the surveys island wide. Once the entire sample population has been surveyed all of the data can be looked at. After all surveys have been done the data needs to be entered and coded. This will allow the department to run a full statistical analysis using SPSS software and make final findings and recommendations based on the research. The final goal of this research is to present complete findings to the Minibus Association and the Department of Communication and Transportation. The Consumer Affairs Department will be able to make research based suggestions as how to improve upon the current public transportation system. With our data and recommendations the Ministry of Transportation can make informed policy changes to benefit consumers, drivers and the efficiency of the system.
References
Brennan, Christina, Chris Hoene. Study Reveals Benefits of Linking Transportation to
Development. Nation's Cities Weekly; 9/9/2002, Vol. 25 Issue 36, p11, 1/2p.
Brown, Denis M. Public Transportation on the Move in Rural America. Economic Research
Service, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, June 2004.
Brown, Dennis M, Eileen Stommes. (February 1, 2004). Rural Governments Face Public
Transportation Challenges and Opportunities. Amber Waves, 2, 175-186.
Freeman, Peter Nigel. A Decade of Action in Transport: An Evaluation of World Bank
Assistance to the Transport Sector, 1995-2005. Washington DC: World Bank, April 2007.
King, Adhara “Transport minister calls for improved public transportation system”.
Sayward Touton. Sustaining Rural Transportation in Developing Countries. Field Engineering
in the Developing World, April 2003.