City transport: Passenger safety is at risk, drivers are overworked

During the past week alone, four traffic accidents involving public transport vehicles took place in Belgrade, the director of the Center for Local Self-Government (CLS) Nikola Jovanović said today. 

According to him, the safety of passengers in public transport in Belgrade is unsatisfactory.

In a written statement, Jovanović estimated that one of the main causes of those accidents is driver fatigue and the pressure of private carriers and the City Transport Company (GSP) to work more than they should by law.

Jovanović said that with private carriers, drivers sometimes work seven days a week, with shifts of 12 or more hours, and that drivers are often over 70 years old. 

He added that GSP drivers often work six days a week and that "it is an open secret that many, after completing a shift in GSP, go to drive another shift for a private company", which negatively affects the safety of passengers. 

Buses in Belgrade are driven by foreigners 

Due to the lack of drivers, private transport companies started hiring foreign drivers a few years ago. Then the GSP also decided on that move.

At the beginning of the year, about 30 drivers from Sri Lanka arrived in Belgrade, and soon found themselves on the streets of the capital. Many of them heard about Serbia for the first time when they arrived there in search of work. Due to poor knowledge of the city, it happened several times that GSP drivers got lost. 

A video of one such anecdote circulated on social networks, when passengers in English instructed the driver to return to the right road. 

Higher salaries didn't help. 

Namely, Belgrade has been lacking drivers for years, because many of them have gone abroad. Mayor Aleksadar Šapić tried to solve this problem by increasing the salaries of GSP drivers. 

Since the beginning of the year, the salaries of drivers have been increased to 100.000 dinars, and there were announcements that, if the conditions are met, they will increase even more. The GSP's problems, meanwhile, have become more complex than drivers' poor earnings.

ZS/FoNet

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