For 2.30 UAH – GPS, CCTV and polite drivers

City authorities and carriers promise significant improvement of passenger transportation services in Uzhgorod after the increase of fares.

As uzhgorod.in reported, bus fares in Uzhgorod would rise. However, not as of February 1, as was indicated in the draft decision, but as of the first day of spring – March 1.   The discussion was long. They even proposed to defer the consideration of the resonance issue at all, to raise the price later, and many spoke about the level of passenger transportation service in the city.

The carriers argued that the current fare was unprofitable. Opponents pointed out: before you raise the price, it is necessary to improve quality. Finally, the decision was adopted as proposed by carriers and the municipal authorities that compromised only on the date of the new tariff’s entry into force.

uzhgorod.in immediately after the "battle" heard the comments of the Mayor Victor Pogorelov, the carrier Bohdan Andriyiv and the member of the executive committee, who opposed raising of the price the most – Margarita Moshchak. 

Bohdan Andriyiv, member of the City Council, the owner of the motor company: "Carriers undertake to improve the quality of transportation through strict adherence to schedule, avoiding conflicts with privileged categories of citizens. We are taking all measures to prevent all conflict situations. Also we have taken the decision to upgrade the rolling stock with larger passenger buses – in order to improve the quality of service. We also undertook to equip terminal stops with video surveillance cameras to monitor the trafiic and we will connect them to the video surveillance network in the city hall."

Uzhgorod Mayor Victor Pogorelov: "By the first of April carriers should install on terminal stops CCTV cameras and connect them to our video surveillance system so that we can see whether the schedule is observed and what goes on on the route – the city could not do that at its own expense. We obliged them to install GPS-navigators on buses, but it’s more necessary for the carriers, we are interested in terminal stops. And already we are doing serious work about the behavior of drivers, if there is a complaint – there is a response, and the number of complaints has greatly diminished, over the past six months we had only 4 complaints for drivers." 

Margarita Moshchak, member of the executive committee: "Arguments against raising the prices were ignored, but it is really going to aggravate the situation with passenger transportation in Uzhgorod. For example, I know that many people already share a taxi and it costs the same amount of money and the travel is really comfortable. I believe that raising prices is useless, it will only lead to an exacerbation of the problem."     

Well, whether the increase of prices will lead to improvement of the quality – the citizens will be able to control themselves: the promises of city authorities and carriers have been recorded, among others by uzhgorod.in. The open question is how will bus drivers give passengers the change from such an inconvenient amount? We’ll see in March.