Phillips tells Parliament Transport Authority acts as revenue collector, not regulator

Opposition Member of Parliament Mikael Phillips used the 2026 Sectoral Debate to press the government on public transport, presenting Transport Authority figures he said expose weak regulation and runaway licensing.

Phillips told the House that in the Kingston Metropolitan Transport (KMT) region, hackney carriage licences had reached 1,600 operators by 2026, while route taxis in the same area numbered about 5,200 in 2025, up from roughly 2,466 in 2016. Island-wide, he said route taxis totalled about 12,000 in 2016 and about 20,275 in 2025. Taken together, he argued, the data showed a 225% jump in hackney carriage licensing in the KMT area over nine years and a 168% rise in route taxis across Jamaica—evidence, in his view, of a deepening crisis rather than orderly sector growth.

The Manchester North Western representative charged that the Transport Authority behaves more like a cash cow than a regulator focused on service quality. He said there has been no meaningful expansion of parking infrastructure, no rationalisation of existing systems, and no coherent national plan for public transport, despite long-standing promises of a prime ministerial transport strategy. Daily conditions in town centres, he contended, amount to chaos for operators and commuters alike, with overcrowded vehicles and unsafe crowding that treats riders as second-class citizens.

Phillips said he would not focus at length on rising clashes between police and transport operators, though he noted such incidents put commuters at risk and feed a public image of disorder. Much of the disorder, he maintained, stems from a chronic shortage of parking bays, which makes fair enforcement of road traffic rules impossible. He called it negligent to allow taxi licences to climb from about 13,000 to nearly 14,000 in 2016 to roughly 28,000 in 2025 without matching logistics or parking support—a policy choice, he said, that effectively guarantees the congestion and indiscipline now seen in urban centres nationwide.

He stressed he was not defending indiscipline in the sector, but urged colleagues to weigh structural causes. For several years, he added, the government has pledged to table amendments to the Transport Authority Act, yet Parliament is still waiting. That delay, Phillips argued, is further proof of legislative sluggishness and failure to deliver substantive transport reform.