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Municipal authorities, bus transport and the war on touts
2005-07-11 07:30:59
By Michael Eneza
So the touts have won again, another battle in their never-ceasing battle for survival against all sorts of threats, less from bus operators and more from municipal authorities.
The latter never cease dreaming of ways to remove them, while the former pretend to be on the sidelines when the issue arises, even at times acting ‘victims,’ and then resort to using the touts as usual. Just what sort of game is being played on touts?
While at an earlier period there was an effort to remove touts while forcing buses to queue up, when the fares were being raised from 150/- to a pretensious 250/- at the start, this time the issue is different.
A group of people close to municipal (and city council) authorities thought up an excellent plan : replace touts by well dressed guards.
Obviously they will be entitled to charging 500/- a day per bus to keep security there...!
Unlike the touts, they wouldn\’t be doing anything \’productive,\’ helping with filling the bus by enticing one or other passenger as yet undecided which bus to take.
There are usually a few waiting buses, one of them rather full, others behind, etc and getting people to climb a bus that is nearly full or already so requires an effort.
Despite pretensions to the contrary, bus operators (drivers, conductors) know that this helps plenty.
There is something psychologically effective in how the touts entice passengers, in that their shouting, or virtually pushing a person to look at the bus, with assurances of space, etc helps.
Where someone could have continued and inspect another bus, some obligation is created by the mere act of being invited into the bus, shortening his or her reasoning effort as to which bus to take. It is meant to wrench away passengers.
Some commentators assert that the touts aren’t needed because it is the job of conductors to shout to invite passengers into buses.
This may be true where touts aren’t there, for instance as the bus passes by small stoppage points, or while moving, shouting at passers-by who may wish to go to ’Mwenge one hundred.’
It is presumed that the price offered affects decisions, as passengers tell peak hours from others, their prices.
The real criticism about the work the touts do isn’t that the conductors would do it instead, because their real job is to collect fares, which requires lessening the pace of fatigue, etc.
Thus the shouting is left to the touts, resting between buses, and starting to shout again once another bus comes around, and this only at non-peak hours or multiple bus minor stations.
When there is a surge of passengers, touts can be sidelined.
Only at a different level of issues can one pick a bone with touts as well as with bus operators (owners, or rather drivers and conductors).
It is merely because of some sort of selfishness and attempt at fooling the passengers, that is, their own psychological weaknesses, that they need the touts.
The shouting is in actual fact an attempt to push passengers into their vehicles, not letting them make a choice as to which to climb.
The irony of it all is that shouting doesn’t create a single trip during the day, where the passenger made it on account of the shouting or at times cajoling by a tout.
If one descends off a bus from Tabata to Mwenge, and then is proceeding to Posta, meeting a tout exhorting him that ’just two are needed for the bus to leave’ for Tegeta, makes no difference.
Where the passenger is going to Tegeta, he checks for that space to climb.
If operators (drivers, conductors) were fair to one another, willing that passengers fill up another bus infront before they start climbing their own, they would need no touts.
Nor would they for that matter need to pay a few marginalised youths to shout nearly purposelessly at every bus stop so long as undecided passengers can be seen, if they respected the choice of passengers.
On both ends of operations they aren’t acting fairly.
Thus they try to undercut the other bus by ‘touting’ to passengers to come their side, and at the same time, seek to influence the passenger not just about the bus but, strangely, about what trip is to be made.
They don’t quite seek to get someone to decide to go to Tegeta, but it comes to something similar to that, at any rate since they shout not about a bus but the trip.
One therefore ‘naturally’ climbs the bus to make the trip.
These are efforts at unfairness because they are intended to maximise one’s share of passengers in a given period of time, that is, getting people to climb quickly once the bus arrives.
Otherwise they would realise that shouting doesn’t add a single trip during a full day of operations, and with the same number of buses operating, it follows that they would earn in much the same way. That is, minus the touts’ payments, surely.
If a bit of research is conducted, it could perhaps unveil the fact (potentially, that is) that an advantage is at times created in getting passengers faster by shouting.
It doesn’t affect the total earnings but contributes to anxiety and sense of speed that governs operations, to fill up the stipulated earnings for the owner and then for themselves.
The irony definitely is that this additional amount, passengers cheated from other buses, is then paid to touts; little of it remains with operators, in which case they much have less income, on average.
These bits of cash are what operators at times appear to be shouting about, as touts are there to ‘help’ even when drivers and conductors don’t need them.
Bonds of dependency and expectations having been created they are hard to eliminate, taking the form of personal vendettas when a change is thought up; touts having stones at the ready for those preying on their daily bread.
At this point, operators start lamenting as victims.
As a matter of fact there is a symbiosis that seems destined to remain in place for more than one reason, first the fact that competition requires the use of touts for most hours during the day.
Second, conductors need to get a rest between one complete trip ending and another starting, otherwise they would tire soon - while it is unadvisable to use ‘dayworkers’ or ‘deiwaka’ in collecting fares. It is easier to do so for the driving part....
An auxilliary reason might be the variation in fares from one stop to another, the full fare when it departs from station and needs to fill up - this bit being basic to calculations, and reduced portions later.
At these other points the basic amount for the trip has been earned, and filling up (also relevant to total earnings) starts; space is plentiful in the bus or many buses have space. Someone has to keep shouting the discount.
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