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Drivers trained the PioTrans way
- Details
- 28 March 2011
The ethics and practices of PioTrans were instilled in Rea Vaya bus drivers during an induction session into the company. In all, 203 drivers will go through the training.
REA VAYA buses are not taxis and should not stop at every corner; they should only stop at bus stations and bus stops.
This is one of the things learned by 12 Rea Vaya bus drivers who were undergoing driver training through the bus operating company, PioTrans, on 23 March at the Dobsonville Bus Depot.
The training aims to introduce the drivers to PioTrans and give them an in-depth understanding of how their buses operate. It is in its second week; all 203 company drivers will be trained.
The trainees also heard that PioTrans was Rea Vaya's first bus operating company.
"PioTrans is committed to deliver transportation service that is safe, putting in the first place the life of the users," the company's operations manager, Juan Duran explained. "Reliability, regularity and cleanliness will be the cornerstones of our operation, always respecting the environment."
The company's objective was to continually develop staff and improve the group's processes, combining technology, innovation and professional management of resources to guarantee sustainability.
He reminded the drivers that when reporting for duty, they should be on time, wear the appropriate uniform and have a positive attitude.They must prepare for service within 15 or 20 minutes before signing in for duty. They had to receive and verify the service sheet or waybill, and find their assigned bus.
Drivers must inspect the interior and exterior of the bus according to the checklist. If they got up from the driver's seat while the engine was still running, they should make sure that the gears are in neutral and the parking brake was on.
"You should notify the yard supervisor when the vehicle has any failures," Duran said. "Leave the depot with enough time to arrive [at] the starting point at the scheduled time."
The bus operators should always make sure that the destination box works properly, and they had to be certain that the correct destination was displayed at the top of the bus.
"The destination display is an information element for our passengers. In order to deliver an excellent service it is really important that the display works perfectly and that you should know how it works exactly."
A BRT STUDY
The first part of the training ended with a slide show presentation of TransMilenio, the BRT in Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia, in South America. It had been running for more than a decade and had over 2000 buses.It transported over a million people a day, Duran pointed out.
Based on the model used in Curitiba, in Brazil, TransMilenio consists of several interconnecting BRT lines, with elevated stations.
After lunch, the drivers heard about their leave and the dos and don'ts of the company. At the end of the training, even the bus operators were pleased with the induction.
Afheli William Ndouvhada, who drives a feeder route bus from Naledi to Thokoza Park in Soweto, said: "The training was important because there are a lot of things we have learned today. I also like the fact that our bosses seemed to take our suggestions seriously."
He was reminded ofthe importance of treating passengers with dignity and respect because, "they, more than everyone else, are our big bosses; without them, we would be jobless".
Another driver,Sipho Ngubane, who plies the same route, said they needed such training on a regular basis so that a good relationship would be maintained between the employer and the employees. The exercise was a building block towards developing the drivers.
According to PioTrans' human resource manager, Anneline Smidt, some 120 drivers have been trained already. "We do not really look at this as a training programme but as an induction to the company. [In] the first half of the day, the training focuses on operation and the second part focuses on company policies."
Smidt explained that the training was important to the company because PioTrans was a business that believed in continual learning and an open-door policy.
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