MoBay Mobility: Navigating Transport on a Caribbean Island by Dami Adebayo (10 Nov 2023)

Last month, I was lucky enough to escape the UK and extend my summer with a trip out to Jamaica. Best known for its beautiful beaches & resorts, jerk dishes, rum and of course Bob Marley - I’m sure it's not a nation that you’d expect to end up on a Scottish Rural & Islands transport blog but alas…here we are.

Whenever I travel I’ve made a personal habit of throwing myself into the deep end of local public transport and refusing to rent a car, much to the frustration of whoever I travel with. So far it’s led to countless unforgettable experiences (for better and for worse!). And so I headed to Montego Bay determined to try whatever transport the city had to offer and to document it for the SRITC community.

Within 24 hours of touching down, I’d learned the three most important things about getting around MoBay (as the locals call it) without a car: (i) be prepared to wait (ii) be prepared to haggle and (iii) in some cases, be prepared to squeeze. Let me explain.

With roughly 80k local residents, transport infrastructure in and around the city is limited to say the least - especially when it comes to roads, rail and buses. The roads are narrow and winding, so traffic is inevitable. Pavements are sporadic (or nonexistent in some areas), so it's not a very walkable environment unless you’re comfortable sharing the street with cars. The last rail service to serve Montego Bay was back in October 1992. And to top it all off, there’s no formal bus system and the ‘bus stop’ is wherever you want it to be.

Despite all this, there is still a smorgasbord of transport options. While there’s no formal bus system within the system, they seem to have every type of taxi you could imagine.

First there are the ‘Route Taxis’. These are informal shared taxis that operate on fixed routes. At first glance it seemed any car could be a route taxi, but the easiest way to recognize them is by their distinctive red licence plates and single chequered stripe along one side of the vehicle. Costing around 80p per trip (regardless of length), these are by far the most affordable and authentic Jamaican way to get around. Naturally, this became my preferred mode of transport. You simply hail them along the main roads and tell them where you’re going: they then either drive off without you if it's not on their route, or invite you to take a seat (even if you can’t see any free seats). More often than not, route taxis are 7-seater vehicles that are filled to the brim with people. Very kind people, who will somehow conjure up extra space to allow you to join the ride. If you value your personal space, this probably isn’t the best option for you. If you want to meet locals, it's quite easy when you’re basically sitting on their lap.

Then you have ‘Tourist Taxis’. Tourist taxis also just look like normal cars, but they have white licence plates with red lettering. They’ll take you door-to-door rather than along a fixed route, and are a lot more comfortable (mostly just because they’re not shared with others). I unintentionally took a tourist taxi once, and the driver immediately made sure to clarify that he was the right taxi for ‘tourists like me’ and hastily reminded me he was going to charge me the equivalent of £10 (even though I could’ve done the same trip on a route taxi for 80p). That was my first and last tourist taxi.

There are also ‘Private Taxis’ which are pre-booked only and won’t stop when hailed. These  prove to be best if you ever need to be somewhere on time (though the traffic may have another plan for you!). They are typically larger minibus vehicles and so a quick 5 minute trip can set you back the equivalent of £20.  Private taxis are especially handy if you want to have a personal driver for longer day trips & excursions. In these cases, always make sure to agree to a fee in advance, but prices quoted typically start around £120 (not including tips). 

Finally, there’s the adventure-seeker’s choice of hitchhiking. Now this isn’t something I would typically do, nor was it an option I intentionally took. Much like when we accidentally hailed a tourist taxi, we’d been standing out on the side of the road for over 25 minutes before a car finally stopped. I’ll blame the blazing heat for leading us to just hop in without asking too many questions. The driver was friendly and he was accompanied by a friend. It was only at the end of the trip when we asked him how much to pay and he took an awkward eternity to come up with a price, that we realised this probably wasn’t his typical day of business. Low and behold, when we left the vehicle we noticed a white licence plate with black lettering… should have been obvious! 

That’s all to say, travelling around Montego Bay is truly an adventure. If you don’t choose to rent a car, you’ll have to decide on your preferred mode of taxi ranging from £0.80-£20 for a short trip. Note that there’s no sophisticated digital solutions paired with these taxis - you’ll either have to street hail until you find a taxi going in your direction or call multiple numbers till you find an available driver. Apparently some areas even offer motorcycle taxis and bicycle-driven rickshaws, but I sadly didn’t come across these. I can’t actually recall seeing a normal bicycle being used anywhere (likely due to the hilly, narrow roads which explains the transport mix being so car-dominated).

For me, the lasting memory of transport in MoBay will be that of the Route Taxis. They are a fantastic way to immerse yourself in the local culture, but certainly not for the faint hearted!  I was surprised to see the use of regular saloon and MPV vehicles on fixed routes, but it makes me wonder whether the UK could take some inspiration from this as a community-organised solution for rural towns suffering from bus service cuts? Current regulations around vehicle sizes & licences for British transport services would make that tricky to implement in practice, but perhaps those regulations are worth reconsidering given the incredibly low costs per passenger which can be achieved with this sort of model.