Public service vehicles will be removed from the road if they fail to fix defects causing heavy smoke - LTA

Public service vehicles including buses will be removed from the road if they fail to fix the defects which are causing them to emit heavy smoke.

This has been made clear by LTA CEO Carmine Piantedosi when asked by Legend FM News on what they are doing to monitor and deal with buses that continue to emit heavy smoke.

Fijivillage has noticed many buses at the Suva Bus Stand emitting thick black smoke and there has been no consistent monitoring by authorities.

Piantedosi has admitted that they do not have LTA officers that conduct monitoring at the Suva Bus Stand.

He says they have officers that do random patrols and inspections on our roads but they rely on town and city council officials to book buses that emit heavy smoke at bus stands.

The Suva City Council says during peak times at the Suva Bus Stand they have about six officers that monitor buses for excess emissions and oil spillage.

They also remove buses from the bus stand if they have excess emissions and inform LTA about the case.

However, this problem is continuing.

Piantedosi says the problem is that many vehicle owners and bus operators only fix their defects when they are about to get inspected by LTA.

He says they are trying to deal with this issue through random patrols and joint operations with Police.

62 defect notices were issued in July this year.