I thought the cry all along has been public commuter services should not be left in the hands of private operators?

Why give matatu owner an option to buy shares? If its shares they want, NSE is open for business. How does a matatu owner shares in the council bus company help the jobless driver/tout?

For there to be redefined routes as KBS used to operate, you need one player who will just do that,the council buses.
Wasn't CCN part of the original, well run Kenya bus?
Then why can't the current county gov't go back to that tested plan?

With mode of payment moving to cards, what we need in place is a system which allows for a seamless connection. If you connect from one route to another within specified period of time, you pay some percentage to the first bus and some lesser percentage of the second route and very minimal to the third. That way, the overall fare is lesser than paying for each connecting route separately.
Such a system can ONLY work well if the players cooperate. Trust you me, under the current system [man eat everything], the second and the third bus on the above connections will not be that cooperative.

This monkey biz of wanting everyone to own a bus company, where has it worked well in the world? We have all sorts of buses with all sorts of colors on our roads. In places where urban public commuter service works well, you hardly have more than 3 companies.

If this one works out well, it will be a master stroke.

Change of mentality is called for here.

The County Government has no business in buying buses as they lack the management skills to manage them. Let them invest in roads , decent bus terminus, de-congest the city roads etc and private investors will bring in buses.

London Buses is the subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL) that manages bus services within Greater London, England. Buses are required to carry similar red colour schemes and conform to the same fare scheme. All services are provided by private sector operators.

All bus operations are undertaken under a tendering system in which operators bid for routes in return for a set price per route operated. Bus routes run for approximately 5 years before being re-tendered.[3] Routes are set up, controlled and tendered out by TfL and they provide day to day assistance via CentreComm which coordinates a large scale network of Network Traffic Controllers to help with any traffic issues that may occur. Operators provide staff to drive the buses, provide the buses to operate and also adhere to set TfL guidelines. Operators are then in return paid per mile that each bus runs, the pricing is announced on new tenders.

Do they want to chase away private investors or to operate in parallel?

The buses were being run by a British company Stagecoach which owned 75% shares in Kenya Bus while kanjo owned 25%. There is no way kanjo can run a bus company alone. Theres so much corruption.

Isokei. They (County) can have a stake in a company and even invite the public to buy shares like in KQ. Fact is, the way we transport ourselves to work is chaotic and we need to reform city transportation. If Nairobians are assured of clean, safe and reliable transportation, we will gladly park the mitumba cars and take the bus to work.