Much Needed New Buses Coming to the Rabat-Sale-Kenitra Region in July

Rabat – Public transport company Alsa-City Bus will launch operations in July 2019 in the Rabat-Sale-Kenitra region. Three hundred and fifty new buses will hit the roads.

Alsa-City Bus, a joint venture between Moroccan company City Bus and Spanish company Alsa, won a tender in January 2018 to manage the region’s public bus system.

The contract covers a 15-year period, renewable for seven years, and promises approximately MAD 10 billion investment into the bus transport system in the region (approximately $1.2 billion).

The 350 new buses (102 buses by Mercedes-Benz and the other 248 buses by Scania-Higer) will have an electronic ticketing system, wifi, air-conditioning, and satellite locating. The total cost of the new fleet is of MAD 700 million (approximately $72 million).

Alsa-City Bus predicts 109 million passengers will use the buses per year, and it aims to create 1,600 jobs.

Read also: Morocco Approves MAD 4.5 Billion Rabat-Sale Tramway Extension Project

The Rabat-Sale-Kenitra region has been in desperate need of new buses. The current fleet is run by Stareo, a company who has been in financial difficulties for a number of years. Many of its buses have smashed paneling and windows.

Alsa-City Bus will take on Stareo employees after the transition to Alsa-City Bus.

Despite this, Stareo employees went on strike in April 2019, as they were concerned with potential job losses from the transition. While two thousand people are currently employed by Stareo, the Alsa-City Bus operations only provide 1600 positions.

As Stareo staff will be employed by Alsa-City Bus, the drivers have also been concerned about additional responsibilities they would get working for Alsa-City Bus in relation to the electronic ticketing system.

Stareo set up a voluntary retirement scheme for 993 of its employees. Seven hundred of the employees have participated in it.