Starter Kit. Idea 429 of 500. Cluster 22
Tourist shuttle services on fixed routes and published timetables between the sites
The mechanism, from the book
The village cannot get a box to the container port. The gap is small firms, not big ones.
The first step
Stand at the ticket office or car park of one heritage site for a day and ask visitors how they arrived, what it cost and where they go next. Draw up a timetable for one fixed route between two sites, print it, and ask the guesthouses along the route whether they would sell seats to their guests. The proof is advance bookings for the first week of runs.
- Who pays first
- Independent travellers on a budget who hire a car for want of anything else, and would book a seat on a published timetable instead.
- What leaves today
- A visitor who cannot move easily between sites sees fewer of them and spends less; reliable transport keeps them longer and spending more on the island.
Ask first
- National Transport Commission. Ask what permit a minibus needs to run a fixed route with a published timetable.
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask whether a registered tourist transport service can be listed for visitors.
Check before you spend
Confirm the route permit for carrying paying passengers on a fixed timetable, the passenger insurance, and permission to stop at each site's car park.
Find out these three numbers
- How much do visitors pay now to get between the two sites?
- How many visitors a day would ride a scheduled shuttle?
- What does hiring a minibus and driver cost for a day?
A comparison from the book
Switzerland. Chapter Eight
"the trains arriving when the timetable said they would"
A timetable that is kept, day after day, is the thing the visitor learns to trust.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.