There is no increase in the price of the ticket, urban transport in Tirana towards a subsidy of 12 lek per ticket for increasing costs

The capital's urban transport operators, due to the increase in fuel costs and employee salaries, have repeatedly requested the doubling of the ticket price from 40 allek to 80 allek.

But the Municipality of Tirana has chosen to subsidize the missing increase in the ticket price and increase the value of the compensation for the student subscription.

The chairman of the Urban City Transport Association, Kostandin Foni, told Monitor that a series of meetings have been held with the deputy mayor of the Municipality of Tirana, as it is expected that the formula for calculating the subsidy will be presented through a draft draft decision.

Based on the calculation of expenses and the amount of ticket sales by each operator, the amount of the subsidy will be calculated, which will be monthly.

According to the National City Transport Association, compensation is expected to be 12 ALL for each ticket sold. Also, for the distribution of free subscriptions for students from October to June, the Municipality of Tirana compensates the operators in the amount of 600 ALL per subscription.

The initiative of the Municipality of Tirana "Subscribe for free for students" has started its implementation from November 1, 2022. For students equipped with a student card for all lines, in the city transport in the municipality of Tirana, the method of compensation has been determined, based on the decision of Municipality of Tirana, i.e. compensation for 600 ALL/subscriber sold.

With the changes for granting compensations, the operators are expected to benefit from 1,600 ALL compensation, equal to the price of the general subscription. So there may be an increase in the subsidy for the student subscription of 1.6 times. 22,000-23,000 free subscriptions are distributed to all operators per month for students, for the period of the academic year starting from October and ending in June.

The companies have raised the concern several times that for each operator in Tirana ticket sales fell by 37% from the distribution of free subscriptions. In October 2023, the National Association of City Transport in a letter addressed to the municipality of Tirana and the Ministry of Education, where they were asked for a full refund in the amount of 1,600 lek of student subscriptions that are distributed for free, since giving them away for free risked the bankruptcy of 11 companies urban transport for 16 lines.

Tirana's public transport continues to be in a difficult financial situation due to the decrease in the number of passengers and the increase in costs from fuel, maintenance and the increase in the salaries of drivers and billers.

The chairman of the National Association of City Transport Kostandin Foni told "Monitor" that throughout the year the number of passengers on urban lines continues to decrease by 35%, while in the summer months there are 50% fewer passengers.

According to him, maintenance costs for the bus fleet have doubled for each operator since the start of the war in Ukraine and until now.

Cost increases for personnel salaries have also been doubled. The average salary of a driver has reached 90,000 per month, while that of a biller is 75,000 per month.

"Due to financial difficulties, the operators are unable to survive or further improve the service. While increasing the fleet of vehicles is an added cost, when the number of passengers is decreasing", he asserts.

In Tirana there are 12 licensed operators operating on 16 lines.

The association warns that if the formula for granting compensation fails to be approved within the month of September, then all public transport operators in the city are at risk of interrupting the service./Monitor