The Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation says that while there is no budget for a concept like carpooling in Trinidad and Tobago, they are looking at alternatives.
Speaking at the 4th Meeting of the Joint Select Committee on Land and Physical Infrastructure on Wednesday, Permanent Secretary Nicolette Duke says the Ministry is exploring other avenues to alleviate traffic congestion.
“We would have launched some time quite recently a Park and Ride Survey because we wanted to find out whether the public was interested in assisting in alleviating some of the congestion, and we know there are certain points in the country where persons are exiting from at certain times of the day, a lot of people are exiting from certain areas, so we wanted to get some data.”
PS Duke said the Park and Ride Survey did not get the desired level of public interest and response, but the data gathered was very useful.
She said the final plan will take into consideration the public’s need for security of property.
“We are also trying to identify different areas that we can have this area that persons will park. We have identified some, but there are others that will need to be identified. There is also the issue of security concerns because if I leave my vehicle in an area and I am travelling quite to Port of Spain, I need to know that when I get back there, my vehicle will be a whole vehicle and not missing tyres and so on. So there are also those concerns, so the Ministry is currently in analysis mode, and we don’t intend to stay in analysis paralysis.”