The Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) is set to unveil a mobile app meant to restrict the flow of matatus in the Central Business District (CBD).
The app will only allow a handful of matatus into the CBD in a bid to reduce congestion in various pickup points.
NMS Director of Transport, Engineer Michael Ochieng revealed that the app will roll out once the Green Park Terminus is complete.
“The electronic system we are going to install here (Green Park Terminus) will inform matatu operators when to send their vehicles to town and when their slot is ready.
“They will know it from an app on their phone, that from their route, only five or six vehicles should come into town. So it will be regulated,” he explained.
The Green Park Terminus, located at the former Nairobi Lunar Park was earmarked to serve matatus plying, Mombasa, Lang’ata and Ngong road.
NMS has revealed that the park is set to launch on Monday, December 14, with all matatus, save for a few permitted by the app will terminate their journey in the terminus.
The park has the capacity to contain 110 matatus with a specific lane dedicated to the public service vehicles.
“We are building the Workshop road, we have already designed it. Works on the road will start immediately from next week so that vehicles coming from Mombasa road will terminate on the other side of the railways’ bridge,” added Ochieng.
Matatu owners, however, vowed to fight the decongestion plan by NMS.
The National Confederation of Matatu Transporters chairman Nelson Mwangi explained that they had secured a court order stopping the authorities from implementing the plan.
CITIZEN DIGITAL
SOURCE: https://www.kenyans.co.ke/news/59615-nms-unveils-technology-bar-matatus-nairobi-cbd
