Sapic announces free public transport in Belgrade at night: "Those going out won't have to drive or get taxi"

Printscreen: TV Pink

Because of a contract that was detrimental to the City, public transport lost around 30 million euros per year, as the collection dropped from nine to six billion dinars per year. When that is multiplied by 12 years, you see that we are talking about hundreds of millions of euros, Belgrade Mayor Aleksandar Sapic said today.

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"Someone took several tens of millions of euros from the city, if not hundreds, for the sake of a profit of 100,000 euros, at least the officially reported profit, but what it was in reality we will never know. The question is whether they will receive compensation of the 100,000 euros per year in court, because they did not completely adhere even to such a contract, harmful to the City," the mayor told TV Pink.

Night service in Belgrade will now be completely free, announced the mayor.

"People going out at night will not have to get in the car with anyone or pay for taxi. They will have a precise timetable of public transport and will ride completely free of charge," said Sapic.

The all-day ticket, which will cost 120 dinars, will be valid from 4 am until midnight on that calendar day, while from midnight until 4 am the next day, free night transportation will be in force, specified Sapic, who also recalled that the time ticket price has been reduced from 89 to 50 dinars.

The mayor stressed that the new public transport system cannot come to life at once, but that citizens must know that it is something that apparently no one wanted or tried to address in the last 13 years since the introduction of the Bus Plus system, i.e. of Kentkart's entry.

"The most important thing is that we need to restore the citizens' trust in their city and that they should know where the money is going. We have to take the first step and are willing to make sacrifices, where we will show our willingness to improve the system and come to a solution that we will all be satisfied with. The new system implies, in addition to significantly reduced prices, a completely new form of communication, new options for buying tickets and an insight into the real state of affairs because we didn't have that until now. That is why I announced criminal complaints against those responsible for signing these two harmful contracts," said the mayor.

He added that the ticket price changes that were announced in the last two or three days are the result of the citizens' reaction.

"In this way, we let the citizens know that their City Administration is ready to hear their suggestions and objections and based on that make corrections. And we will continue to change and fix everything that the citizens think is necessary, and the prices can certainly only go down," said the mayor of the Serbian capital.

Sapic repeated that the new prices are up to 50 percent lower and gave an example of the old system that had four zones and seven tariffs, while now there are only two zones and two tariffs.

"Citizens will be able to buy tickets via text message or a phone app, and for those who don't want that, there will be special sales points at first, and very soon we hope that paper tickets will also be available at newsstands," said the mayor.

(Telegraf.rs)