The St Helena Government Tender Board has met to review the tenders that were received to operate a Public Transport System. They have agreed with the recommendations of the Special Evaluation Group.

The successful tenderers were:

Colin’s Garage, who will cover the Sandy Bay area as well as St Paul’s and Half Tree Hollow;

Fox Motors who will cover Levelwood, Longwood, Hutts Gate, Alarm Forest and the Briars; and

Solomon and Company PLC who will cover St Paul’s, Half Tree Hollow and Blue Hill.

The St Helena Government is now in the process of fine-tuning the public transport system before it comes online. This includes formulating a public transport bus timetable.

The Public Transport System is almost ready to be launched.

Initially, the St Helena Government had hoped that the System would have been up and running by October of this year, and while this has been slightly delayed due to the need for some fine-tuning, Government Economist Adrian Green said today that this process should be complete by the end of next week.

In October of this year SHG announced that the contract had been awarded to Colin’s Garage, Fox Motors and Solomon and Company PLC.

A Public Transport Bus Timetable is now being put together and the Government Economist is meeting with the successful tenderers to make sure that everything is sorted so that the Public Transport System can be launched.

The Tourist Office hosted a workshop for Taxi Drivers at the Consulate Hotel last evening.

Thirty invitations were sent to persons who are registered with the tourist office as either full time or part time taxi drivers and the workshop was advertised via Radio St Helena. While only 12 persons attended the meeting it turned out to be very productive.

The meeting commenced just after 7.30pm with a presentation on Customer Care by the Director of Tourism, Pamela Young. Pamela reminded those in attendance that it was important that customers were happy with the service being provided because if cruise companies were to get too many complaints about a destination, they would not want to return during the next cruise season.

The presentation itself focused on the type of customers one could expect, the health and safety aspects, and how one should handle difficult customers.

Following this, she invited questions from the floor and also asked those present to put forward any suggestions they had for improving the service they offered. Later she also asked for any suggestions on marketing St Helena.

This resulted in a healthy debate and many issues were discussed. Health and safety aspects featured high and there was also talk about the way in which tours are currently operated on the Island.

A number of suggestions were put forward and one was to have a post mortem after cruise seasons to review what went well and not so well. One person suggested that the Tourist Office increase its marketing budget, and another suggested that a separate bid be made for funding to address concerns raised by taxi drivers, mainly for health and safety purposes. The need for a breakwater was also mentioned.

The suggestions were noted although Pamela explained that while some could happen others would take time to develop and there would be some that might not be possible although every attempt would be made.

Nicola Osborne, Senior Clerk Tourism also made a presentation on how taxi drivers should operate an Island tour. This included photographs and useful facts about St Helena.

During the workshop the Tourist Office released their new brochure called: Discover the Countryside St Helena, a coloured publication that has a map of the Island tour area with places to stop at for photographs and more.

Commenting on how well the evening went, Pamela said: "Although we would have liked to have had a bigger turnout, all in all the workshop was very constructive and useful and I hope that with the help of other departments, the private sector and non Government organisations we can actually realise some of the suggestions, but it can only work if we have the support of everyone else."

The Public Transport System

The special evaluation group, which was set up to review the five public transport tenders, met for the last time today Monday 22 September.

After looking at all five proposals over the last few weeks, the group has now made recommendations and these will be put to the St Helena Government’s Tender Board for decision.

Four key areas were focused on when assessing the proposals. These were financial, which included the subsidy the bus service provider would require and the proposed fares; business, which included management arrangements and marketing ideas; health and safety, and routes and times. The group had been specially set up so that it included members who had experience in these areas.

Subject to approval by the Tender Board, the launch date for the Public Transport System is now set for early October and buses should be running from Sandy Bay, Levelwood, Longwood and Blue Hill into Jamestown.

A bus timetable will be formed shortly and this will include details on bus stops, times and fares. This will be published after the Tender Board has made its decision. The Tender Board is expected to meet some time this week to consider the evaluation group’s recommendation.

The five proposals to run a public transport system were discussed by a special evaluation group earlier this week. The group comprises Government personnel and Leeanne Henry, Acting Managing Director from the St Helena Development Agency. This was the group’s second meeting.

In early August, SHG invited tenders to operate a public transport system and now that proposals have been received, a decision has to be taken as to which party or parties should be awarded the contract.

The five interested parties have all submitted their business plans which include their proposed routes and the amount of subsidy they would require from SHG to operate the service.

When assessing the proposals, the evaluation group is focusing on four main areas; financial, which includes the subsidy required and the proposed fares; business, which includes management arrangements and marketing ideas; health and safety, and routes and times.

One group member said: "we are carefully considering all of the submissions and steady progress is being made in evaluating the proposals submitted by the interested parties."

It is still planned to have the public transport system up and running this month so that the people of the Island can start to benefit from it.

It will be necessary for the evaluation group to have a few more meetings before making recommendations to the Tender Board.