Monrovia – The National Transit Authority (NTA) has instituted new transportation measures to promote transparency and at the same upgrade the transportation needs of the citizenry.
The new measures add to a set of existing ones. It includes a digitized ticketing system, a “slight” increase in the NTA buses fares and additional routes.
Speaking at the Ministry of Information regular press briefing on Thursday, the Managing Director of the NTA, Harbie McCauley said NTA is going digital to promote transparency.
He added that the agency is partnering with an IT company to ensure that the digital system works efficiently.
“Every dollar that will be paid on the card will be transferred directly to the NTA’s account; so we try to avoid leakages as well. We also decided to go digital to enable the card system and the card system can be used daily or monthly,” McCauley said.
“The card is very easy to use and those that will have the opportunity to purchase a monthly card, you can ride ten or twenty times a day without paying; for thirty days it’s going to be free…you can ride anywhere in Monrovia.”
According to the NTA boss, both monthly and daily cards will be sold for US$1.50 each while student will pay US$15 for a monthly subscription and adults will pay US$20.
“So you can either put money on your card through mobile money or through our vendors across the city. The vendors will be in various locations in the city and you can go to them and purchase your card from them,” he disclosed.
“We are still going to have the ticket system for those who can’t purchase the card; we are doing this because it is going to take us some time to absorb the entire card system. The new paper ticket system will not be like the old one because it is going to be printed out of a machine with every destination and time on it.”
Meanwhile, the NTA boss disclosed that within the city center the new fares for the NTA buses is now L$50 while out of the city center or off station area is L$100.
“That is, if you were paying L$300 from Monrovia to Buchanan, you will be now L$350, if you were paying L$400 to Ganta, you will be paying L$450 and so on,” disclosed McCauley, who added that the NTA will resume normal operations of its buses on February 18.
Meanwhile, new routes added to the NTA listing of destinations include Old Road to Broad Street; New Kru Town to Broad Street, and RedLight to Diggsville. Others include Snapper Hill to ELWA, RedLight to Bong Mines and Mcdonald Street to Rehab Junction.