The state plans to invest in diesel trains that will transport more than 132,000 people in Nairobi every day.
Transport CS James Macharia said the trains will provide an alternative form of transport for the city residents and ease congestion on the roads. Macharia said only about 12,000 people in the city use the rail transport daily.
The government, he said, will import diesel units from abroad to augment the Kenya Railways. “We will be shortly announcing how we will go about putting up the major investments. This alone will move so many vehicles from the roads and ease congestion on roads,” the CS said.
The CS said this is one of the many ways that the government is using to revamp the train commuter system and diversify public transport from public vehicles.
Macharia said the project will be undertaken before the bus rapid transit system, which he said requires more infrastructural investment, including expansion of roads and creation of bus stations.
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The CS said the public transport system is going through a major transformational process and the transformation is going in line with the implementation of the Big Four agenda.
“The housing estates that are being established by the government require public transport and that’s why this matter must be taken on urgently,” he said. Macharia said the ministry has formed a task force that will be tasked with the formation of rules and regulations that will control the boda boda sector.
He said the task force has been given 60 days to draft the regulations that will restore sanity on the road.
The sector, he said, has more 700,000 operators countrywide and has led to the hospitalisation of thousands who have been involved in accidents. “It is estimated that in the next one year, we will be having over one million boda boda operators,” Macharia said.
He said by February next year, the task force will hand over its report and help put in place a framework on which the government will compel operators to comply to traffic regulations.