Frequently battle-scarred, carrying the dents and scratches of street warfare like campaign medals, the minibuses of Jeddah are the answer to two questions. How do low income people get around Jeddah? Where do all old minibuses go to die?
Early morning at Bab Makkah in downtown Jeddah a milling mass of workers attempt to locate which of the dilapidated buses is heading for their destination. The good- natured chaos of pushing and shouting gradually resolves itself into a series of packed buses. Mounting their buses, which teeter on ridiculously thin wheels and belch clouds of exhaust smoke, the drivers head out onto the highways and byways of Jeddah to give battle to any car presumptuous enough to share the road.
The minibuses of Jeddah are a public service in private hands. In many cases they provide the only means for lower income people to get to work or transport things around the city. Owned by Saudis and sometimes rented to independent Saudi operators, the system runs as efficiently as it can, given the levels of equipment and adhoc organization. Most of the buses are old Toyota Coasters, rarely if ever serviced, in poor mechanical and structural condition, uninsured and operated by drivers with no public service vehicle training. Yet, in the huge urban sprawl that is modern Jeddah, they keep a great proportion of the working population moving.
The people who use the buses, however, have a different perspective on them. Mushtaq Ahmed, a Pakistani secretary who works in Balad, said that he had to use the buses twice a day. "I live at Kilo 8 and pay SR4 each day. I am happy with the price, but I feel that these battered vehicles don’t meet the high demand for transport in Jeddah. There need to be more and better buses."
A large proportion of the vehicles were built over 20 years ago. They have no air-conditioning, frequently have ripped or damaged seats, are internally in a state of dreadful disrepair and are often interminably slow. "During the summer," another passenger commented, "it is not so much the process of traveling, more like slow cooking."
Some buses are new, but that is a relative term. We found none less than five years old and already showing signs of casual maintenance. Bald tires, broken lights and colorful paint over new dents were the rule rather than the exception.
Progress through the city is slow; partly it is due to the frequent and unscheduled stops, partly mechanical breakdowns.
One driver, Abdullah, rents a 25-year-old bus and cheerfully admitted that he never has it serviced. Full marks for build quality, zero for safety considerations. He is not alone. None of the drivers we spoke to had scheduled services; the problems are simply attended to as they rather frequently occur. More significantly, scheduled service when there is no obvious mechanical problem is seen as a waste of money. Preventive maintenance is an idea yet to be born, it seems.
A car driving license is sufficient qualification to drive a bus. The drivers receive no training in road craft, safety procedures, mechanical skills or driving technique. Their thirty or so charges quite literally put their lives in the hands of entirely amateur bus drivers. Their cavalier tactics when spotting a potential fare and the safety record of the vehicles have become the stuff of urban legend.
Another driver, Fawaz, told us that he hadn’t any up-to-date paperwork for his vehicle; no one had ever checked it for safety or roadworthiness. Looking as it did like an ambulatory scrapyard, that information did not surprise us. Asked what he did if there was a police checkpoint, he grinned and said that he knew where they were and simply diverted around them. Do the passengers object? "What can they do?" he replied with a meaningful shrug.
Very often, the drivers work dangerously long hours. Ten and 12 hours a day are common. One driver even admitted to 18 hours a day for several days each week. Tired drivers make for dangerous driving. With down-time representing loss of income, the incentive to pack buses well over design limits and maximize the number of journeys are overriding ones.
While male travelers impotently tolerate the conditions of cheap public transport, the situation is much worse for women. The minibuses offer no separate accommodation for them, so they are obliged to use the SAPTCO local services. Though in better condition, the SAPTCO buses are very infrequent, have far fewer routes than the minibuses and are inflexible in their pickup and dropoff points.
Sadia Ahmed, an Ethiopian housemaid, said that female passengers have no choice but SAPTCO buses. "It often takes hours waiting for a SAPTCO bus," she told us. "The minibuses are much more frequent and less expensive, but we have no alternative. We certainly cannot afford to take taxis."
"After an early start and a very long working day," Rose, a Filipino domestic worker said, "waiting for a SAPTCO bus while watching minibuses go by is very upsetting."
Efficient, cheap and safe public transport is essential in any major city. People have to be able to travel to work reliably and cheaply for commercial reasons, if not for reasons of simple humanity. Stress caused by the pressures of commuting in crowded vehicles is a well-known medical problem and damages an employee’s efficiency at work in addition to his health and well-being. Perhaps a significant test of any transport system is this: Do young unaccompanied schoolchildren use it regularly? If not, is it fair to inflict this rickety infrastructure on anyone at all? Check the passengers on the next minibus you see.
