NMS announces new trial run for Green Park matatu terminal

NMS Green Park terminus

The Green Park matatu terminal in Nairobi. NMS has announced yet another trial run for public service vehicles at the terminus starting Wednesday June 22, 2022.

Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group

The Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS) has announced yet another trial run for public service vehicles (PSVs) at the Green Park terminus starting Wednesday.

The announcement comes after three failed test runs last year at the terminus, located at the former Lunar Park.

The test will be run in two phases, with the first involving PSVs terminating at the Railways station and the second featuring matatus plying the Ngong and Lang’ata roads.

The new development follows a meeting between NMS and transport stakeholders in the city on Thursday last week as part of final preparations for commissioning the terminal.

NMS Director of Transport Michael Ochieng said that once the two-phase trial run is done, an appropriate day will be picked to finally commission the terminal.

Not main commissioning

“These phases will be trial runs and not the main commissioning. Our teams will be doing the rehearsals. When we complete the trials, we will go for an appropriate date for official commissioning,” said Mr Ochieng.

He said NMS enforcement officers will be part of the trial to ensure seamless flow of traffic at the terminal.

“For a start, all vehicles terminating at the Railways Station will operate on the trial run basis from 5am. We expect that there will be seamless flow both to the customers and the operators,” he said.

The terminal was initially meant to be commissioned on May 24 but was postponed.

Request for extension

NMS said the delay followed a request for an extension from PSV operators.

The opening was to see all matatus plying the Ngong and Argwings Kodhek roads end their journeys at the terminus starting May 24.

Three days later, matatus plying the Lang'ata Road route will have moved into the terminal.

NMS had said in March that it planned to relocate all matatus from the city centre from this month, starting with those designated to move to the Green Park terminus.

The terminus can accommodate between 300 and 350 vehicles at any one time, processing about 1,000 PSVs per hour and up to 20,000 per day.