HAS As Eid Al Adha approaches, bus and train stations are taken by storm in the eyes of many travelers wishing to spend this sacred holiday with their families. Also it is customary to see passengers with children, luggage and bags or even the famous animal from which comes all this bustle, looking for a bus or looking for tickets. The atmosphere in the bus stations inevitably becomes under the sign of the real headache for the citizens in search of joining their families as soon as possible during this period of Eid Al Adha.
We do not tell you the national bus and train stations this Friday, July 8, two days from Eid al-Adha were crowded with people. However, many citizens and their families have given up on the “ritual” trip to this “sheep festival”, given the price of transport tickets.
Spread the word ! On the eve of Eid Al Adha, due to financial constraints, the flow of travelers in bus stations did not reach the normal level before the Covid pandemic, hence this forced option, for a large number of families in renounce the practices of travel on the occasion of the feast of sacrifice.
But, it is clear that it was not dead calm either in these places at the start of a vacation, however short they may be. While health and mobility restrictions have been significantly eased, the recent surge in fuel prices has once again upset the calculations of transport professionals, who are struggling with high operating costs, which affect prices. transport and in business it is always the consumer who tastes the dregs with his tongue full.
Thursday, the Minister Delegate in charge of Relations with Parliament, government spokesperson, Mustapha Baïtas, announced that 4,350 exceptional authorizations should be issued to facilitate the movement of travelers on occasion.
He explained that the number of coaches for the road transport of approved travelers amounted to 2,100, with a total capacity of 200,000 places per day. Regarding rail transport, the Minister had indicated that a special program had been prepared for all rail networks on this occasion, since 242 trains will be scheduled instead of 220 during a normal period, with a capacity of 150,000 seats. instead of 120,000.
On the ticket side, if the “organized” travelers opted for online booking, the others who intended to obtain them on site at the counters had to submit to endless queues, as usual, very disorderly, suffering harassment from brokers in the process. From then on, the simple trip often resembles a real obstacle course.
That being said, Casablanca was more and more emptied from Friday, 2 days before the festival. At the “Oulad Ziyane” bus station, we got organized and we were able to adapt to these exceptional circumstances under the watchful eye of patrols by the police and security forces who ensure that illegal transport is avoided.
Also the scenes of chaos that previously prevailed at this station, the focal point of road passenger transport in Morocco, on the occasion of this sacred festival that is Eid al Adha, are becoming less frequent thanks to better organization but also at most 75% of travelers compared to before the Dame Covid epidemic.
That being once on the bus and for a trip to Ouarzazate on the way to the city of Marrakech temporarily longer than usual, the passenger will find that traffic on the “highway” had been made difficult at the time. look at the cars that have used it since the early hours of the day, thus encouraging the road traffic authorities, in places, to secure, regulate and organize the route.
In the ocher city, in terms of rail, if the crowd of travelers was dense in view of the many passengers traveling to various regions of the Kingdom, the process of travel from the acquisition of the ticket to the seating in the wagon s took place in an organized atmosphere due to the doubling of the number of employees of the National Railway Office.
In addition, there is a problem with the price of tickets for bus travel. They doubled as if by magic, in particular those bound for the cities of the south, arousing the fact, the dissatisfaction of the many passengers who found themselves obliged to buy these tickets at the price offered.
The roads are not free from traffic accidents often caused by excessive speed and a lack of inattention on the part of drivers, as the national road linking Casablanca and Marrakech has been witnessed. Slowdowns were also frequent on certain roads, particularly at the Tizi n’Tichka pass where development work on the road linking Marrakech to Ouarzazate is taking place, but the delay is of lesser effect for the smooth continuation of the trip. .
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