Author: Klevis Paloka
With the argument that it will reorganize and restructure the transport service due to citizens' complaints and inspectors' monitoring, the municipality of Tirana announced that from June to the end of August the general subscription will be removed. From this measure, it was shown that subscriptions for special lines that are sold normally would be excluded, while for general subscriptions, September was seen as the month when they will be put back on sale. The months of June, July, August are considered by the Municipality of Tirana as a period during which the city's public transport operators will be required to restore the full conditions of service provision, according to the terms of the contract, providing full service with 100 percent of capacity of means in operation.
But the decision of the Municipal Council of Tirana, which was met with protest, once again brought the problems of urban transport in Tirana into focus. Although the problems were exposed more clearly during the pandemic, for citizens, everything is related to the financial effects that are caused in their pockets, but also the quality of this service.
"Once they raised the price of tickets and season tickets, now they are removing the general season ticket, because they are going to reform urban transport, but in fact the opposite has happened, the conditions have gotten worse and worse”, this is how the 50-year-old Fatmir Sefa, who because of his job as a plumber, is forced to move from one urban to another, begins his story.
Sefa does not hesitate to call the cancellation of the subscription an economic loss, since it forces him to pay a dedicated ticket for every bus he takes.
"We are leaving the salary on the subscription, it is good to work for the subscription since I have to buy three subscriptions, since I change three different buses a day to go to work. So far I have not bought any subscription and I change the urban 6 times a day, spending 240 ALL per day for tickets. It is not a political issue, this is directly a pocket issue", concludes the plumber's story.
Even for Shpresa T., who works as a sanitary worker in two different places in Tirana, the removal of the subscription costs a lot, after the first day of June she is forced to buy two or three subscriptions to reach her destination. And according to the woman, the citizens were ignored even though they are part of the community and they needed to be consulted.
"I work in two different places as a sanitary worker, and I have to go from one end of Tirana to the other. The general subscription was more economical, since you buy it and travel in every city, while now I am forced to buy 2-3 subscriptions, since I change 2-3 cities a day. I have to take the urban "ring", "New Tirana" and "Kombinat", says Hope.
Like Fatmiri, for Hope, the impact on family income is negative.
"The little salary I get, now I have to leave half of it to pay the subscriptions of the lines, since even by buying tickets every day, we don't have enough money. I hope that this will be removed as soon as possible and that we will be restored to general subscribers", appeals the 53-year-old.
Citizens were not counted
The Director of Complaints at the Albanian Consumer Protection, Hasan Stafa, tells the Albanian Center for Quality Journalism that with this decision the opportunity has been removed not only from the capital city, but hundreds of citizens who come from the districts and have economic difficulties because they live on rent or in peripheral areas of Tirana. That's why Staff, to be more specific, talks with numbers.
"Public transport is used by over 423 thousand residents of Tirana and in and out of the districts. About 146 thousand general subscriptions have been removed. More than 90 workers of the subjects: fashion industry, call center, construction, public health workers, police, students, students were penalized. Over 70 are housewives, jobseekers, pensioners and invalids", Staff counts the effects.
According to him, even though there has been an increase in the price of both the ticket and the subscription, as well as the urban lines, but also the general one, more than half of the means of public transport do not meet the basic standards.
"70% of the means of transport do not meet the basic standards, seats, ventilation, distance, air conditioners. The price is abusive, as consumers are being extorted and very little has been invested. We will ask consumers to protest, by subsidizing travel, starting with 2 days a week, as subsidization costs around 27% of private sector workers' out-of-pocket income.", concludes the Director of Complaints for ACQJ.
For his part, the executive director of Qëndresa Gytare, Rigers Xhemollari, sees the removal of the general subscription as a decision of the City Council in the interest of businesses and public transport operators and not in the interest of citizens. According to Xhemollari, an important legal link such as the hearing was overlooked.
"The decision to remove the general subscription from circulation for 3 months is a decision with a direct financial effect on the residents of the capital, and as such, an important legal link such as the public consultation process was overlooked. Do the citizens agree, why is the subscription temporarily removed and how does it affect the restructuring process?
Secondly, the Municipal Council has a representative role to make decisions in the interest of those it represents, i.e. the citizens, in this case the Council has made a decision in the pure interest of business and public transport operators, who are expected to have a breather financial from this decision to put their entire fleet to work, but emptying the pockets of the residents in a daily and direct way", says Xhemollari.
Multiple costs
That's why the leader of Qendresa Gytare emphasizes that the removal of the subscription will have a multiple cost to the detriment of the students.
"As long as there will be no general or student subscription in circulation, the cost on citizens with low economic income and on students will be from 3 to 6 times higher than with a subscription. Today, someone who previously used two bus lines with a general subscription will pay 3200 lek more than he used to pay, while a student will pay about 3800 lek more, costs that directly affect the lives of these citizens", emphasizes the leader of the Civic Center for ACQJ.
Civic initiative
Immediately some activists of the "Political Organization" organization took an initiative to sign a petition to change this decision. According to the activist, Klodi Leka, this reaction has come as a form of expressing citizens' dissatisfaction with the situation in which the public transport service is located.
"In fact, it was not just our idea, it is a kind of dissatisfaction of the entire last decade, we can say, of the last 10 years of the citizens with the state of public transport in Tirana, which is getting worse and worse and often has costs like mental as a profession for work, as far as citizens are concerned. Even seeing the massive dissatisfaction of the citizens with the fact that the general subscription was removed, we took this initiative as activists to sign a petition, to deliver it to the Municipal Council of Tirana and the Mayor, Erion Veliaj", says Leka.
The 29-year-old emphasizes that there has been a great awareness of ordinary citizens who have reacted in their own way.
"In 5 days, about 8 thousand citizens have signed, but we expect that they will go more than that, since there was a sensitization of the citizens to sign it. There are about 220 citizens who use it in their daily lives and they are people who keep Tirana going with their work and activity. It's not just about firms, it's not just about numbers, ehit is a matter of high social sensitivity which affects the working class", said the 29-year-old.
Sakaq Leka shows how much is the economic cost that is added by removing the subscription.
"As we have seen during these five days, the category that has signed the most of this petition is that of the sanitary workers, since their complaint is that now that their subscription is removed, half of their salary goes to the buses. Another category is that of construction workers.
From a calculation we made, it turns out that in a family with three people, where two parents work and their child is a student, the social cost goes from 4000 ALL to 5000 ALL per month, adding family members also increases the social cost", says Leka.
What happens to the subscription?
At the end of December 2015, the Municipal Council made the decision to increase the bus ticket price by 10 Lek, increase the price of the general subscription by 400 Lek, while the single line subscription increased by 300 Lek. The Mayor of the Municipality, Erion Veliaj, at that time justified the increase in the ticket price as there would be reform and modernization of urban transport in Tirana.
Even in the decision taken by the Municipal Council, it is emphasized that the electronic ticketing system will be introduced in the urban transport lines.
"The ticketing and subscription card system will be electronic. In the electronic ticketing, the categories of people who benefit from free travel as well as students will be provided with personalized cards. Until the application of electronic systems, it is operated according to the current ticketing standards and subscription cards", it is emphasized in decision of the Municipal Council of Tirana.
But a simple observation of the main urban lines in Tirana shows that the conditions are the same as in 2016, and have even worsened. The electronic ticketing system is missing. Another big promise of Mayor Veliaj was the replacement of buses with electric ones. But the facts show quite the opposite, and even this matter has been completely forgotten.
