RIYADH, 6 December — Members of the expatriate community traveling for Umrah by bus from the new bus terminal at Al-Aziziah have reported a state of chaos and mismanagement at the terminal, with nobody knowing where their buses are parked. Passengers have also experienced overcrowded conditions at the terminal, causing a great deal of inconvenience to them and their families.
Narrating his experience, Intesar A. Alavi, an executive of Saudi Lighting, told Arab News that one of the reasons for the confusion was the non-performance of the state-of-the-art system at the Al-Aziziah bus terminal (built on the model of an airport). The arrival and departure timings of the incoming and outgoing buses are normally displayed on the computer terminals for the passengers’ convenience.
However, the system has not been applied for the private buses licensed to operate from the new bus station, 15 km from downtown Riyadh. As a result, buses belonging to the various Umrah establishments have not been allocated a particular site at the sprawling complex.
"Another problem is that all the passengers are required to pass through a single entrance, while many exit points have been closed. This has created a lot of confusion among the passengers who could number up to 5,000 during the peak Umrah season," Alvi said, adding that staggered timings, the use of a public address system and signboards could go a long way in easing congestion as the Ramadan traffic enters its penultimate phase.
Architect Abdul Rahman Saleem of Salah Abalkhail Consulting Engineers said Umrah operators should be allotted designated parking lots, with sign boards displaying their names in English and Arabic in bold letters.
"We go with our families and baggage to a particular bus only to be told that it is parked elsewhere. Moreover, the bus drops the passengers at Al-Batha, from where we have to hire a limousine to go back to Aziziah paying SR20 to get back to our own vehicle parked inside the terminal complex.
This was echoed by A.A.K. Shamim, relationship manager at the Arab National Bank, who said limousine drivers are charging the passengers an additional SR5 for dropping them at their residence. He said this is the amount that the limousine drivers have to pay for using the parking lots set apart of limousines. Thus the passenger ends up paying the taxi fare plus SR5 toward the parking fee.
Khaja Najeebuddin, who works for a private-sector company, recalled his experience when he was kept waiting for five hours before boarding the coach.
He said when he made the booking for himself and his family by Ajyad Travels, he was told that the bus would leave at 3.30 p.m. on the scheduled day. Instead, they had to leave at 8.30 p.m., five hours behind schedule.
"This is because the passengers were overbooked in their greed to make a fast buck. In some cases, they announced cancellation of the trip due to non-availability of coaches and overbooking of passengers," said Shaukat Ali, also from the same company.
He added that there was also a lot of fluctuation in the fare structure, ranging from SR150 to SR450, depending on the ebb and flow of the Umrah traffic.
The Ministry of Haj has already closed down 25 Umrah firms and imposed a fine for their failure to honor their obligations to the pilgrims.
The decline in overseas Umrah traffic after Sept. 11 has led to overbooking of the available coaches and the resulting chaos at the bus terminal.
