It is difficult to fight against gas price increase. Suppose we refuse paying for the new rate (in fact, how to know as to how much will your fare be with the “old” price), “gas people will come” and turn off your gas supply, how will you turn it on? Struggling against the rise in tuition fees is not easy either, the student will just be removed from the university. The situation is different with the transport fare; it is every day repeated action, and here you enter into everyday relationships not with the owner of the line, but also with its hired driver. The latter has the most opportunity to grumble, or, in extreme cases, to revile, if the passenger is paying 100 drams instead of 150 drams. Conflicts, of course, are inevitable, but the driver, after all, can not not to drive his car, as opposed to fees for education and gas, he does not have the leverage to “punish” the passenger for paying AMD 100. The problem, I think, is not so much the fare as the wrong ‘setting’ of the entire industry. First of all, the taxes versus to minibuses do not have a numerical advantage in any city, and it is a consequence of the fact that the operation of mini bus lines is handed to MPs and officials.
If, for example, the mayor and the head of the Transportation Department have “route lines” (which by itself is a violation of the law), are they interested to reduce the number of route taxis? And, in general, can one of the owners of sector regulate the same sector by the status of public official, to organize fair competition, and the like. It is the same as the same person is a coach of the game and one of the players at the same time. The second major problem is that there is no real competition in this sector, since everything is divided into oligarchy. And, consequently, there is no motivation to improve the service (as opposed to taxi services, where there is a competition). The mini buses, as a rule, are driven by unshaved, slovenly dressed drivers, fill up 25 passengers in the car, stop the car wherever they want and often pick up and get off the passengers from the second line.
And most importantly, the passenger and the driver should not communicate with each other “on the money issue”, “get a fare”, “take the change.” The driver should be a booking clerk, it is wrong for both the road safety and purely the business (legitimate, honest business) in terms of efficiency. More civilized way is that the telling machines sell tickets of a day, month and a year for separate transportation means, or one ticket for all of them together, and more services you buy, bigger discounts are designed for you. In case of using any type of transport once in every day, it definitely should take considerably cheaper than the AMD 100. In this case, everything will be clearer, transparent, and controllable than it is now. In our bright century, there are plenty and quite cheap means for it. Otherwise, they have created a system operating with the laws of the jungle, they are owners or a regulator, and now they have decided to get extra revenues. So, unshaved drivers are not to blame, but their the “so-called mentally unshaved” owners, as well as those who distributed the lines to those owners.
Aram Abrahamyan
