MMT patrons call for better service delivery

Patrons of the Metro Mass Transit (MMT) buses in Cape Coast have appealed to management of the company to improve upon their customer service delivery to meet current trends.

According to them, the world had reached a stage in technological advancement which called for a change in all aspects of human activities including the transportation industry.

The plea came last Friday when the Ghana News Agency interviewed some commuters at the MMT terminal in Cape Coast who were unhappy with what they termed “poor customer care delivery” by the company.

Mr. Stephen Ahedor, a public servant who said he was a regular commuter of the MMT, said “I normally take the Metro Mass bus every Friday to Accra to see my family and return every Monday dawn to work in Cape Coast with the same fleet due to its comfortability and safety.”

He however complained that, “their customer care services left much to be desired, the ticketing officials, especially the ladies are sometimes disrespectful and talk anyhow to passengers.”

Asked why he continued to patronize their services despite all the complaints, Mr. Ahedor said he had to keep a cool head each time he paid for his ticket in order not to get confrontational with the officials.

Madam Esi Komah, a trader who said she had been patronizing the services of the MMT since its inception some years back and suggested that “there should be someone in the bus to usher commuters to their seats according to their seat numbers.”

She said for instance passengers who could not read usually sat on wrong seat and it was embarrassing when they were made to look for their correct seats when the bus is full and ready to set off.

Madam Komah appealed to management of the MMT to also increase their destination bus stop terminals along their routes and consider people with baggage and luggage who would like to alight at undesignated bus stops.

To her, it did not make sense when a passenger wanted to alight at a particular bus stop, sometimes with a load, only for the driver to ignore the request with the flimsy excuse that it wasn’t a designated MMT bus stop.

Ms. Loveth Ankomah, a student, said “in this age, why should passengers shout and sometimes endanger their lives trying to walk to the driver in the moving vehicle just to indicate their intention to alight at their destinations.”

Ms. Lordina Egyiri, also a student, was quick to query, “Why can’t they employ the services of a conductor who would do that on behalf of passengers, or better still fix some alarm knobs in the bus for passengers to easily press to alert the driver on approaching their destinations?”

Mr. Issifu Bamba, a teacher, called for the introduction of a mechanic on board every bus because he boarded one of the buses some months ago from Cape Coast to Accra where the bus developed a fault around Winneba, and the driver had to manage it at a snail’s pace until the bus eventually gave up at Senya Beraku junction.

The driver, he said, seemed to have little knowledge about the mechanical problem, leaving commuters stranded, and had to join different vehicles at another cost to continue their journey.