The Lagos State Government has requested the support of the State House of Assembly for the implementation of its Bus Industry Transition Programme, a new transport initiative.
According to The PUNCH, the BITP aims to establish a policy framework for restructuring the current bus industry and developing a new business model that integrates existing bus operators and routes into future Quality Bus Corridors.
The project is a collaboration between the Lagos State Government, the Ministry of Transportation, the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority, and other stakeholders.
During a familiarization meeting with the Lagos State House of Assembly’s Transportation Committee led by Adewale Adedeji, Mr. Oluwaseun Osiyemi, the Commissioner for Transportation, emphasized that the initiative is intended to address the “unscrupulous activities associated with the yellow commercial buses.”
“The BITP is something that Lagosians should embrace. It is a three-year model plan whereby we are planning to migrate the informal sector and marry them to the formal sector. We all know the madness associated with our yellow buses.
“We are involving the transport unions to reassure them that we are not yanking off whatever it is that they are doing. We are only formalising the sector in such a way that we will have an efficient transportation system and build the kind of mega city that we crave,” he said.
Speaking on the roles of the Assembly, the commissioner said, “The legislature, of course, has lots of roles to play in what we do because the lawmakers are the ones that coordinate and assist in the areas of forming policies and rules and in situations when we need to get our budget, planning, and funding right.”
