SEPTEMBER 2025 - Flipbook - Page 18
TECH NEWS
From
Cypherpunks
to
From
Disel
to Data:
How
Mauritius
Smart
Contracts:
The
Could
Drive
Long
Revolution
the Future of
of Blockchain
Public
Transport
Feature Article by
British correspondent
Pritish Beesooa
In Mauritius, the bus is more than a vehicle; it is the nation’s heartbeat. Every
morning, long before the sun rises over the sugarcane fields, fleets of buses roll
out of depots across the island. They carry factory workers to industrial estates,
children to classrooms, civil servants to ministries, and tourists to beaches and
resorts. By dusk, they will have transported more than half a million passengers
(almost 40 per cent of the population) across routes that reach into every corner
of the island.
This is not simply transport; it is infrastructure woven into the fabric of everyday
life. For decades, the system has been anchored by the United Bus Service Ltd
(UBS), part of the larger UBS Group, working alongside smaller operators under
government mandate. Together, they have ensured that Mauritius, despite lacking
a railway and relying heavily on roads, has a functioning, affordable, and farreaching bus service.
But while the foundations remain strong, the pressures of the 21st century are
mounting. Ageing diesel fleets, rising energy costs, congestion, and the urgent
need to cut carbon emissions place new demands on a system originally
designed in another era. At the same time, the digital revolution from artificial
intelligence to blockchain, is redefining how societies think about data, efficiency,
and accountability.
The question, then, is not whether Mauritius’s buses work. They do. The question
is whether they can be reimagined as a public utility fit for a green and digital
economy, capable of generating new forms of value, new sources of revenue,
and new levels of trust. From electrification to blockchain-backed transparency,
from tokenised payments to real-time data governance, the Mauritian bus
service could become more than a network of vehicles. It could become a showcase for how small nations lead in innovation, not by discarding the past, but
by building upon it with purpose.
The Historical Backdrop: From Independence to a National Lifeline
students to attend secondary schools in towns, and citizens to participate in a
democracy that depended on physical connection as much as civic imagination.
Central to this story has been the United Bus Service Ltd (UBS), founded in
1954 and gradually expanded into the UBS Group. Over the years, UBS
became the backbone of Mauritian transport, providing a majority of the fleet
while working alongside dozens of smaller, family-run or regional operators.
This ecosystem, shaped by government licensing and subsidies, ensured that
even unprofitable routes such as those linking remote villages or thinly
populated areas remained served.
The state’s role has always been crucial. Through targeted subsidies, successive
governments have kept fares affordable, particularly for students and low-income
groups. Policy interventions have also sought to balance the dominance of UBS
with opportunities for smaller operators, preserving competition while maintaining universal coverage. The model was not one of full nationalisation, as in
London or Paris, but of public-private partnership: a hybrid system where private
companies provided the vehicles and labour, while the state set the framework
for service delivery.
This arrangement has delivered much. Mauritius has one of the highest levels
of bus reliance in Africa, with public transport accounting for around 60% of
all daily journeys. It has also kept the system affordable: fares remain accessible
to the majority, and students under 20 years old benefit from free transport
schemes introduced in the early 2000s.
Yet the system has also inherited structural constraints. Diesel remains the
dominant fuel. Operators often face tight margins, limiting their capacity to
modernise fleets. And while subsidies protect affordability, they also restrict
innovation, tying the system to a model designed in the mid-20th century.
Today, with Mauritius positioning itself as both a fintech hub and a climate
leader in the Global South, the time is ripe for a rethink. The question is no
longer whether buses should remain in private or public hands, but how the
existing system with UBS at the core, smaller operators alongside and the
state as guarantor, can be transformed into an engine of sustainability,
accountability, and new economic opportunity.
Mauritius’s bus service is as old as its modern statehood. When the country gained
independence in 1968, it inherited not just colonial-era institutions but also the
challenge of knitting together a diverse island with no railway system and limited
infrastructure. The bus quickly became the natural answer, being a flexible,
relatively low-cost form of mass transit that could serve both densely populated
urban corridors and scattered rural villages.
A Public Utility vs Private Profit
In those early decades, the government recognised that mobility was not just about
convenience but about nation-building. Affordable, reliable buses were essential
to social cohesion, enabling workers to access jobs in new industrial estates,
Around the world, the most admired transport systems are not judged by profitability but by how well they serve their people. Buses, in particular, are rarely
lucrative enterprises. Their purpose lies elsewhere: in providing equitable access,
