The mayor of Belgrade announced that public transport will be free in 2025. Experts say that this decision only cements the bad condition of the city and the difficult financial situation
"There is no ticket payment, there are no monthly tickets or discounts. With this measure, Belgrade becomes the only city in Europe with more than half a million people that has free public transport", said the mayor of Belgrade. Aleksandar Šapić at the conference where he presented the City's plans for 2025.
Let's go back a bit. At the beginning of 2023 City of Belgrade unilaterally terminated the contract with Kentkart, which as a private partner charged tickets in public transport. In place of that company, at the end of November 2022, the public company "Vehicle Charges" was established and thus the City took over ticket collection.
Why?
Then Šapić said that they realized that it was all a big "fog" (the contract with Kentkart) and that they did not want to be complicit in an upside-down system that made transportation the way it is.
"We also have exact data on how much ticket collection has been reduced, which is a drop in collection from nine billion dinars in 2011 to six billion dinars in 2022," Šapić said at the time, stating that the city suffered between 25 and 30 million euros in damage to annual level.
Šapić also expected that by the end of September, GSP will record the same or higher revenue from ticket collection than before the takeover from the Kentkart company. The prices set by the city are twice as low and now amount to RSD 50 for a 90-minute ride.
The situation is even more difficult
Nikola Jovanović from the Center for Local Self-Government reminds "Vreme" that one of the first promises of Aleksandar Šapić was to increase the percentage of ticket collection in public transport, through restoring trust in public transport, purchasing the best vehicles and forming a new collection company.
"By giving up ticket collection, the mayor admits that he has failed in all these goals," says Jovanović.
He adds that the question arises as to whether the mayor will now abolish the utility company "Naplata prevozne usluge", which spends 950 million dinars from the budget this year alone.
"Making decisions without any analysis, in accordance with populism and the current political situation, only cements the bad state of the city and the difficult financial situation," indicated the interlocutor of "Vremena".
Night transportation is already free
Ivan Banković, traffic engineer and president of the Trade Union Centar GSP Belgrade, agrees that this decision is bad, and tells "Vreme" that it will have a disastrous effect, first of all, on the space for investments and improvement of the infrastructure for the public transport system in Belgrade.
He explains that what is needed is a transparent and fair tariff system where public transport will be free, but for the most vulnerable categories of the population as a form of support from the City, while other users should pay in proportion to the category they belong to.
"This measure will benefit employers the most." We have the most users of monthly tickets from the category of employees, and according to the current Labor Law, it is the employer's obligation to actually pay the transportation fee to the employee, or to use the transportation fee directly and buy a monthly ticket for him," Banković points out.
He emphasizes that in the last year, we have come to a situation where transportation is de facto free, precisely because the PUC "Charge for Transportation Services" as a city company did not perform its work properly.
"Control was practically non-existent, there were few controllers and they were not motivated enough to do their job."
The interlocutor of "Vremen" reminds that from May 2023, the measure that night transportation is free was introduced, and yet the citizens did not get more departures, nor did they get more vehicles, nor did they get better service if something is already "free".
"Furthermore, the service has further deteriorated, and you have nothing to complain about because 'you don't pay,'" says Banković.
New, new, new
In addition to this announcement, the mayor also announced the complete renewal of the fleet and that by the end of 2025, there will be no buses older than two years in Belgrade.
However, how will "free" public transport affect the quality? Jovanović says that nothing is free, and that everything that employers will not pay employees for transportation, we will all pay through the city budget.
"And he is empty," concludes Jovanović.
Banković points out that Šapić's statement regarding the procurement of new trolleybuses and trams through a private-public partnership is "the most disastrous and most expensive type of borrowing".
"There are two models. The first is to invest in a company that you founded. 132 years ago, the city of Belgrade founded the City Transport Company "Belgrade", which has the basic activity of public urban and suburban passenger transportation and some other activities that follow on from that. You can either invest in the infrastructure, in personnel, in the vehicle fleet, in the company's material resources and to strengthen that company and to set policies for the development of the city, and then the task of the company is to realize what the City of Belgrade has set as strategic goals." explains Banković.
He goes on to say that the second model is that there are credit lines, credit partners, especially when talking about green vehicles, or vehicles that are ecologically clean, where you can take advantage of various subsidies offered by the European Union, among others.
Why such a decision
Šapić's announcement about new vehicles also raises the question of why a vehicle that is, for example, 10 years old, and in good condition, would be withdrawn from traffic?
"One of the things that has been changed and it is a direct consequence of Šapić's wish that you will have from the first of September next year that the buses in the public city transport in Beorgad can be a maximum of 10 years old, and this entails, among other things, why we will withdraw the Solaris (buses) next year. We will have some new buses, but those new buses will primarily be Turkish, which do not drive in any European or world city, but you will have them on the streets of Belgrade and they will be beautiful to the eye," says Banković.
The interlocutor of "Vremen" concludes that the basic logic of withdrawing a serviceable bus and a quality vehicle just because of some administrative age limit is a populist measure. "Secondly, I see corrupt elements because if you have the procurement of exactly certain models of buses, and GSP and private carriers also buy from the Turkish manufacturer, it is too much for coincidence." In this case it is BMC."
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