Opinion: Kenya should invest in light railways

A Kenyan working in London underground train system has urged the country to invest in a light train to save millions of money on lost on traffic jams.

Sam Mutai, a personnel with London Under, said that Nairobi will benefit enormously if they embrace transport system like the one being used in London.

"Counties such as Nairobi must start investing on Light Railways from East to West and North to South, to ease road congestion and reduce environmental impact caused vehicles fumes stuck in traffic for sometimes more than two hours," said Mutai.

Mutai who works as a Frontline personnel in charge of point of contact to customers that involves interaction with other stakeholders like contractors, booking them on/off and making sure job is completed with no hazards to customers, said that though the funding from United Kingdom central government has been declining year after year, the service delivery has been going up.

He explained that for the system to be efficient, every employee knows what they are expecting of them and the management structure is like a clock.

"For trains to run stations must be open.First train normally starts at 5a.m and finishes at 01.30am but on Friday and Saturday it is 24 hour service and every days four million passengers rely on the service, it is the engine which drives the economy of this great city," said Mutai.

According to Mutai, when the lines are closed after 01.30 hrs contractors book in to carry out repair work like replacing damaged rails, drainage system, replacing sleepers and they only have two and half hours to complete the work.

"If it goes beyond that it affects service and contractors will be penalised for overrun," said Mutai.

He explained that technology has been driving force in the train business in London, it has even made signaling easy that trains can leave station every two minutes.

"When I started all customers were using paper ticket, but now everyone is using smart card or mobile phone to travel, and since London Under was a public company, all the revenues generated is reinvested back in service delivery," said Mutai.

In a case of discipline that has allowed the system to run vigorously, corruption has been kept at bay for instance, no member of staff or relative allowed to bid for tenders due to conflict of interest.

Mutai said that there were few Kenyans doing the job with only five including one who is a train driver from the entire East African Cooperation in the company. People from EAC are not many compared with our colleagues from West Africa.

A former Hotell Russell manager worked in the hospitality industry for five years and worked in health food store as customer service supervisor before joining the London transport system said if such a sytem was to be initiated in Nairobi just like in London, the safety of customers was a priority.

"We live in challenging times where few individuals want to harm the innocent customers. It is my responsibility using assets at my disposal to monitor, check and coordinate with British Transport Police for any issue," said Mutai.