photo: phonetGENERAL DANGER: A bus that broke in half on the way
"Please, get out, there is a problem, the vehicle can't go any further." Line 511 operates without a rear window. The brakes of the trolleybus failed, it crashed into a bar on Zvezdara. A bus on line 351 burned down in Vojislav Ilića Street near the Blue Bridge. A GSP bus broke in half near the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Bus on line 704 on Brankovo most - burned down. A bus on line 511 caught fire on Obrenovačko road, where the door fell off the previous day. On route 78, a wheel fell off and seriously injured two women on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, the news arrived the next day that one of the women who had been hit by a wheel and fell off that city bus had died.
The incidents keep coming. There are no official answers to the questions arising from these accidents, at least not specific ones.
The President of the Provisional Authority of Belgrade, Aleksandar Šapić, said that the accident that happened in Belgrade when a wheel fell off was a human error, and that the person who made that mistake was arrested.
"That person was arrested, a technician who did not properly tighten the wheel. I think that the driver also has responsibility because he has to check, but I want to say that there is no request for an extraordinary technical inspection from the City of Belgrade, it can only be requested by an authorized person, that is, the Ministry of Internal Affairs", said the president of the Temporary Authority of Belgrade.
"I don't know what else needs to happen in order for the city government to take responsibility," President of the Belgrade PSG board, Stefan Simić, told Vreme. "They are hiding behind private carriers, as if private carriers 'fell from the sky' and appeared on the streets of Belgrade, not that the City of Belgrade and the City Secretariat signed contracts with them, which, after all, is competent to control private carriers".
The Secretariat for Public Transport is primarily responsible. However, the director of the Center for Local Self-Government, Nikola Jovanović, told "Vreme" that in the Secretariat they are working according to certain strategic, political instructions from the City of Belgrade and from the political top itself, and that it is obvious that the plan is to gradually destroy and reduce the GSP, and that the lines are handed over to private individuals.
"Of course, the City is responsible for the supervision of the implementation of the contract and for the supervision of the service, primarily the Secretariat for Public Transport, but all decisions and all main powers are made in the mayor's office, so he is responsible for the work of the secretary and for the work of council members. This is primarily an organizational, strategic and political problem", explains Jovanović.
photo: vladimir sporčić / tanjugCONSTANT FAILURES AND FIRES: Public transport in Belgrade
GSP bus driver Zoran Stefanović from the GSP union "Pravda" revealed to Vreme that the regular technical and six-monthly technical inspection is done exclusively "visually": "We come to the channel, the master goes down to the channel, inspects the vehicle, turns the steering wheel, presses the brake pedal and more. If they happen to find a minor fault, which in principle means that such a vehicle should not be put on the road because even minor faults must be fixed in time because they will cause much more serious faults later, they just state - 'It can still goes'”.
PRIVATIZATION TREND OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
Line 78, from which the wheel fell off and killed the woman, is the line of the private carrier "Banbus", and "Avala bus 511" is responsible for line 500, which recently caught fire.
Jovanović says that in the last 10, 15 years, there has been a trend to increasingly privatize public transport in Belgrade in such a way that the most profitable and strategic lines in Belgrade are taken away from GSP and handed over to private companies.
What are the experiences with the privatization of public transport? Jovanović says that neither he nor CLS have anything against private capital and private carriers, but that in general the experiences are bad. Private carriers, he notes, should help the City of Belgrade in providing the function of public transport even where GSP cannot or where private companies have higher standards of passenger transport and business, so they should also be allowed to help, that is, participate in public transport.
However, Jovanović explains that the problem is that private owners in Belgrade often have lower standards than GSP, and by that we mean bad vehicles and, above all, very bad maintenance, service and technical inspections of vehicles. Namely, private individuals usually only have a few mechanics and engineers, and they have no incentive to have more because Belgrade pays private individuals a fee per kilometer driven.
"There are no high criteria for performing that function in the contracts on public private transport. So, in essence, private individuals look to transport passengers from point A to point B as cheaply as possible for as little money as possible. And the cheapest and easiest means very often unsafe, in bad and unmaintained buses, and how it contributes to the situation that basically, he turns a blind eye to vehicle breakdowns and very often, as long as the bus can 'roll', it is put into operation", Jovanović points out.
IN WHAT CONDITION ARE THE BUSES RUNNING??
In Belgrade, public transport serves around two million passengers every day, says Jovanović and notes that it is quite an important segment that every other citizen of Belgrade uses public transport occasionally or constantly; that is why it must function in order for Belgrade to be a functional city.
Stefanović states that they already have problems with "BMC" brand buses, and that they should abandon the purchase of these cheap buses because they break down faster and cannot be used, for example, like the "Solaris" that have been running for 11-12 years and with they have no problems.
"Even the new gas buses have started to cause us problems - little by little I see them standing on the street, waiting for service", says Stefanović.
He also claims that some drivers have licenses on which it is written that they passed for all categories on the same day. How is that possible? And some, he says, also thank the companies on Facebook.
DREAMS OF SOLUTIONS
So what is the security then? Finally, how to solve this overall situation in public transport in Belgrade?
Simić says that they propose the following solutions: first, you should enter the City Transport Company and see how many buses are in good condition, and only then start purchasing new ones, and those new vehicles must meet environmental standards.
"Belgrade has a problem that it does not have a metro, there are not enough parking spaces, and we have to ensure that our public transportation works in the best possible way," emphasized Stefan Simić. The proposal, he adds, is to introduce professional management and that workers who work directly - that is, drivers - constantly undergo training and that their incomes increase because drivers leave Serbia and go to Slovenia.
Jovanović says that CLS has a plan to solve public transport in Beorgad in six months, but political will is needed for that. He explains that public transport must be solved in two ways, and that one is first of all to preserve and improve GSP, which means professional management, cancellation of harmful contracts, procurement of quality vehicles and that this public company sets the standard in public transport in Belgrade and is a guarantor that public transport will be of high quality and safe.
"The second point is to revise contracts with private individuals and to impose severe penalties on private individuals who have performed poorly, such as Banbus." Specifically, 'Banbus' should be banned from public transport in Belgrade after this accident. To set the strictest standards of technology, safety, bus servicing, technical inspections, only ecological vehicles, etc., says Nikola Jovanović.
YEARS OF DESTRUCTION OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
Public transport has not been functioning properly for years, and Simić says that no extraordinary inspections were carried out, nor did the city's Secretariat for Public Transport check whether all the conditions from the contracts signed with private individuals were met.
Jovanović also thinks that the driver cannot be blamed for the system that is falling apart, and that this is not the first incident, so it is necessary to look for the exact cause. Incidents happen every third day, and the drivers were "to blame", he reminds, and when the bus loses control and hits a wall or the station.
"We constantly get away with saying 'the driver is at fault', and the system is completely freakishly made. GSP is being systematically destroyed, buses are unsafe and no one is responsible or taking responsibility, which means that this system is suitable for someone, but not for citizens, passengers and what is more important than the public interest", says Jovanović.
Finally, the question arises as to whether anything will change systemically. Jovanović recalls that he repeatedly pointed out the possible dangers of this state of transport and that we do not lose human life.
"Will a systemic measure be taken in the sense of extraordinary supervision, introduction of stricter standards, how many times vehicles are sent for technical inspection, different contracts with private individuals, even some moral and command responsibility, for the secretary of public transport to resign? Is any of that happening or will it happen", asks Jovanović.
Unfortunately, the answer is known.
