38
Transport
a bus. “The target was for middle-aged people to change to another industry.” The rst training programme opened
in November but was not a success. It proved dif cult to attract young drivers or women because bus driving is typi- cally viewed as a hard job requiring long, in exible hours. The government and Reolian even-
tually agreed that more effort would be put into training. A revamped pro- gramme was announced in May admit- ting not only truck drivers but also car drivers that have held their licences for at least three years, who were able to ap- ply to get a licence to drive buses with capacity for up to 25 passengers. “From September 2010 til May we
made progress and that’s what pleases me,” Mr Rigaud says. “Of course it will not resolve the issue we have now, that is to have 400 drivers by August 1, but thanks to this programme we will have more people joining in three or
four
months.” Reolian’s operations are not at stake.
By the end of last month, as many as 300 drivers were on the books, enough to en- sure the company can handle its routes from day one. “We are not too far be- hind,” Mr Rigaud says. Of the company’s drivers, most
came from Transmac and TCM. A hand- ful came from shuttle bus companies and other small operators.
The carve-up When Reolian rst made its bid, Mr Rigaud says the company did so with a commitment to quality service. “We knew we were facing tough competition from two already existing bus compa- nies, so to enter [the market] we knew we had to be aggressive,” he says.
Sky eye eases hiccups on the ground A
t its head of ce in NAPE, Reolian has set up an operations control centre, where tech- nicians monitor the movement of its eet using GPS sensors. The company’s general manager, Cedric Rigaud, says the operator can anticipate a
bus becoming full or being delayed and act accordingly. “With one of our partners in the mainland, we developed our own software that we
have fully customised for Macau,” says Mr Rigaud. He explains more features will be added to the system as part of the company’s emer-
gency plan, enabling it to respond quickly during a typhoon, accident or traf c jam. “We are capable, now, of anticipating all the delays and we should have enough re-
sources to respond before they occur,” he says. The solution is typically to deploy extra buses. While that does not help passengers that are already onboard, it will help the next traveller waiting at the bus stop.
S.F.
JULY 2011
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