Passenger carriers call for a postponement of the introduction of the new tariffs

A new regional public transport ticket and fare system will come into effect on April 1. The Association of Passenger Carriers of Latvia, however, believes that this is being done legally incorrectly and hastily, as a result of which the new tariffs may be erroneous in some places. In the meantime, the carriers ask passengers not to blame the bus drivers if the fare has risen significantly.

There is no doubt that the tariffs in rational public transport had to be revised, because they no longer corresponded to the real situation and did not cover all costs. This is stated by the president of the Association of Passenger Carriers of Latvia, Ivo Ošieneks. However, carriers are not satisfied with the way these new tariffs are implemented by the state. “There is a condition in the contract that the carrier must be informed 30 days in advance by sending complete information to the carrier’s official e-mail addresses. As a result, the information was already available since the middle of December last year, when the Public Transport Council made decisions, but any real actions from the Road Transport Directorate followed only in the middle of March.”

The Road Transport Directorate, on the other hand, states that the preparation of the new tariffs took place for about a year. The transporters’ association has also participated in this work. Also, passenger transport companies have had several informative seminars on the new tariff system and its implementation. VSIA “Autotransport Direkcija” representative Viktors Zaķis: “To say that they did not know anything and that this was news would probably be hasty. Also for us, when it was decided on December 14, the implementation time was short, it is three and a half months. In this case, its complexity lies in the fact that tariffs are not raised by 10, 20%, but it is a completely new tariff system.”

The Association of Latvian Passenger Carriers believes that the implementation of the new tariffs should be postponed until June 1, so that the process is not rushed and all the terms of the contract are respected. Then there would also be enough time to correct errors in the new tariff tables and to inform the public. One of the passenger carriers in the Vidzeme region – the company “CATA” – also agrees with this. “Half a month ago, we started receiving the first tariff tables. They were full of mistakes. “I still can’t say anything good about the process, about the progress of the implementation since the carriers were approached and the first information was given,” says Lotārs Dravants, Head of the Passenger Transport Service of JSC “CATA”.

Dravants explains that the company has repeatedly informed the Directorate of Autotransport about errors in the new tariff tables. Some of the errors have been corrected, but some have not. “There are still mistakes, to which the Directorate of Road Transport, which is a state administration, answers us – sign it as it is. How can I sign if I can see and show specific places. Specifically, in the crew area of ​​the company I represent, there is a combination of two stops, where currently the fee for a distance under five kilometers is 75 cents, the new price is 2.40 euros when traveling from A to B, 2.60 euros from B to A.”

For such and similar situations that may arise on regional public transport routes after April 1, transporters primarily ask not to blame bus drivers. Ošinek: “Take a ticket for the trip, sit down and during the trip call the Road Transport Directorate as the customer, ask for an explanation of the situation if the passenger is not satisfied with something.”

The new tariffs will apply to both bus and rail transportation. Passengers will be able to get exact information about the new ticket prices at ticket sales points. On the other hand, it is possible to get acquainted with the new ticket prices for intercity buses on the website of the Directorate of Motor Transport.