The public transport net of the capital does not meet the standards of safe, comfortable and quality service implementation, the city authorities announced during Yerevan City Council election campaigns, promising to improve the net and urging the citizens to remain patient. We took a loan for that and paid 800k. Euros to the international expert who now studies the field of public transport and draws out suggestions on matching the net to the European standards.
“Yelq” bloc also has plans to improve the public transport. Asked what news they had in this field, “Yelq” bloc City Council member David Khazhakyan told that they had already sent suggestions on the joint ticket format of transport net which is in the phase of discussions – how that ticket should be, by what principle the citizens must be charged, etc. “The new transport net presumes transfers, i.e. utilization of more than one transport, most likely – two. Naturally, the current system cannot work, inasmuch as in this case it appears that the citizen pays double price, this is the reason why we have suggested how the joint ticket should look like. according to us. The adviser had proposed 3 primary options – by hour count, by kilometers count and city zoning, but all of them implied some issues. We have suggested 1 fixed ticket, that is – from the angle of price it should be predictable to the citizen and not dependent upon the time-period wherewith the transport will reach from one point to another. One ticket encompassing the validity period. The aim is to exceptionally provide the transfer of the citizen. I paid for that ticket, I took the first transport, I reached the destination, I waited for the second transport for some time and that time is that opportunity of the transport validity for me to have an opportunity to take the second transport.”
To our question implying that in the pre-election period the city authorities were mentioning a set deadline for the installation of joint ticket system which is 2018, whether it is possible or not, Mr. Khazhakyan replied that from that perspective he had doubts forasmuch as the net is still in the phase of designing: “Numerous questions are in place which should become clear before putting the net in use overall. However, we will follow that the deadlines are met, because another issue exists: the expectations which the current private owners of public transport or the drivers have, those expectations make the state of the current transport worse. New investments are not made, less public transport reaches farther places and Yerevan public transport has started to work worse with the expectation that a new net is to be put in use.”
Lusine BUDAGHYAN
«Aravot» daily
15.07.2017
