Botswana/Zambia bus service must shape up

| Friday June 20, 2008 00:00

The service provided by this bus company leaves much to be desired. This service provider has no system starting with the ticketing to the boarding of the bus. For this kind of service one would expect that there would be a booking system which bookings would then be confirmed by purchasing of the ticket. This is non-existent. If one wants to manage to buy a ticket they have to be at the ticket office, on the day of travel, as early as 7am or even earlier whereas the office is only opened around 8 am. Once one has bought the ticket they are advised to be at the station by 6pm (bus only leaves around 8.30pm if it is on time which it rarely is). You get to the station around 6pm and wait for the bus. Once the bus gets to the station there is pandemonium once the loading of the goods commences.

Passengers are not allowed to get on the bus until the loading of the luggage has been done. The hustle is to get one's luggage loaded. One will be lucky if they get their goods loaded (if it is loaded at all) hustle free. This is regardless of how much luggage one has.

As a matter of fact people with more luggage even stand a better chance of getting theirs loaded compared to (believe it or not) those with only 1. Further, even people not travelling but have goods to send stand a better chance to have their goods loaded. One wonders if this is a courier service. Perhaps it is, and if this is the case then the travelling public should be made aware so that when their luggage is not loaded then they know the reason why.

The situation has been like this for a long time now. Is it because the management of this service provider is not based in Botswana and they are not aware of what is going on? Perhaps the Department of Transport should come to the aid of the travelling public.

What do the conditions of the permit stipulate? Surely it is not expected that non-business people should travel without luggage, not even a bag of clothes.

If one lives outside Gaborone, it is almost impossible to get a ticket for the bus. If they do manage then they are made to pay the fare for Gaborone to whatever destination in Zambia. This is regardless of whether one is boarding the bus in Palapye or any of the towns north of Gaborone. And because of the problem alluded to above one can only manage to get on the bus if they only have luggage small enough to fit in the luggage compartment inside the bus, otherwise they have to travel to Gaborone.

This service provider has really taken the travelling public for granted especially that they are the only one servicing the Botswana/Zambia route.

Concerned Traveller