SGR Train (Photo/Twitter/Kenyarailways)
Owners of buses plying the Nairobi Mombasa route have welcome plans by the Kenya Railways Corporation (KR) to hike fires of the SGR train from April.
KR managing director Atanas Maina on Friday presented an approved fare by the ministry of transport of sh 1200 from the sh 700 promotional fare. This now levels up with bus fares on the route.
However, fares of the first class coach will not be affected since they will remain at sh 3000.
Bus operators speaking to Business daily said that focus will now shift to the quality of service and therefore resulting to fair competition.
“We welcome the move. It will be upon passengers to choose on the mode of transport to use when travelling between the two towns,” Lenox Shallo, Mash East Africa general manager said.
Coast bus owner and managing director Ajaz Mizra said that KR should have set the right price from the beginning to avoid some of their customers resorting back to buses.
He added that the move to increase fares was in the right direction and they had awaited for such an action.
“This is a move in the right direction that should have started as early as yesterday,” Ajaz said.
The train has been in operation since June and has been taking four hours to ply the route between the two cities, a distance of 472km.
Nairobi and Mombasa are the main terminals however there are 31 stations in-between with seven intermediate stations which the intercounty train has been making a five minutes stop over.