Public transportation in Belgrade has become free for everyone, but it remains unclear how the additional costs will be covered in the budget and what will happen to the ticket collection equipment. While citizens enjoy the relief, experts question the long-term sustainability of this model
Public city transport he is in Belgrade from today free for all citizens, and from the beginning of the new year, a dynamic - variable timetable should be introduced, and the previous fixed schedule of departures of city buses should be abolished, Beta agency reports.
Mayor Aleksandar Šapić presented that transportation will be free of charge as a social measure of the City of Belgrade, but he could not specify exactly how much would have to be allocated from the city budget for it.
According to him, the city administration already provides 250 million euros annually to subsidize public transportation, and the new levies should be an additional "couple of tens of millions of euros more".
Šapić: It is not possible to give an accurate assessment
Šapić explained that it is currently not possible to give an accurate estimate due to changes in the monthly amounts of ticket collection so far.
For the abolition of the current timetable and the introduction of a dynamic timetable, the mayor said that it should happen at the beginning of the year.
The introduction of the dynamic timetable was announced due to, as he claims, the impossibility of observing the fixed timetable due to the increased traffic in Belgrade compared to the time when the departure schedule was made.
Šapić stated that the dynamic timetable means departures of buses from the starting stations when the drivers receive a signal for it, depending on the assessment of the need, which will avoid abuses that the buses drive empty and do not stop at the stations in order to arrive on time at the planned timetable.
The changes started in April 2023
Changes in city transport in Belgrade began in April 2023, when the City Assembly unilaterally terminated the public-private partnership with the Turkish company "Kentkart", which operated the "Bus plus" ticket collection system.
Because of this, the company "Kentkart" sued the state of Serbia and is demanding compensation of 17 million euros, while Mayor Šapić claims that, if payment is made, no more than one million euros will be paid.
The former head of Šapić's cabinet, Nenad Milovanović, was sentenced in the first instance to eight months of suspended prison at the beginning of December, because he offered the Turkish company to set up a tender for a new ticket collection system, if they agreed to terminate the contract.
A month later, in May 2023, a new ticket collection system began to function in Belgrade, in which approximately 14 million euros were allegedly invested.
The price of tickets was significantly reduced at that time: a ticket for a 90-minute ride cost 50 dinars, and a daily ticket cost 120 dinars, while monthly tickets were reduced to 2.000 dinars.
There are no official data on how the new system and the price reduction affected the sale of tickets, but the mayor repeated several times that more tickets were sold, but that the collection was lower due to the lower price.
At the moment, it is not known whether and how the equipment purchased in the middle of last year will be used, because the transportation became free from today.
A little earlier, in September 2022, the City of Belgrade founded the Public Utility Company "Naplata prevozne usluge", which at that time took over the business of ticket collection in public transport from "Kentkart", and whose future after the introduction of free transport is also unknown.
Downloading lines
The changes in the ticket collection system were also accompanied by problems on the city transport lines controlled by private carriers - bus departures were delayed more and more, some buses caught fire, their doors fell off, and a wheel fell off one of them, killing a passer-by.
In contrast, in April 2024, the lines with the initial numbers 100 and 700, which until then were controlled by the City Transport Company (GSP), were handed over to private companies.
According to Šapić, GSP did not have the capacity for all lines, and private companies whose lines had problems were financially fined, and contracts with some were terminated.
The mayor stated that private individuals are conditioned by the new contracts to buy new buses.
The last in a series of incidents occurred when it was announced at the end of December that the City would unilaterally terminate the partnership with the consortium, which includes "Lasta", because, among other things, the buses do not meet safety standards, which is why the workers went on strike, which led to a complete suspension intercity transport.
After negotiations, the city of Belgrade gave up unilaterally terminating the contract, transportation was established later the same day, and the consortium was given a new deadline to correct all problems.
Source: Beta
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