site.bta Sofia Public Transport to Have New Ticketing System

Sofia Public Transport to Have New Ticketing System

Sofia, December 9 (BTA) - The Sofia Centre for Urban Mobility, which manages public transportation in the capital, has drawn up a new plan to renovate the public transportation system. The new system will again have a combined fare for more than one means of transport, and will make it possible to charge trips by their length, Chairman of the Sofia Municipal Council Elen Gerdjikov told reporters on Friday.

The plan provides for the introduction of CCTV surveillance in public transport vehicles which will help determine the frequency of the respective service.

The plan does not envisage higher prices of tickets. However, trips will be possible to pay for online, by bank transfers and other means as well.

Fifteen thousand devices, including CCTV cameras, will be installed in 1,350 vehicles, 11 dispatch centres, 52 stations of the underground, more than 80 commercial outlets, and a control centre to access the CCTV camera footage in real time in all vehicles. The expected daily load of the system is more than one million rides.

A public procurement procedure is to be invited for the creation and installation of the system with an indicative value of up to 88 million leva. The procedure will be announced after an approval to this effect of the Sofia Municipal Council and if the bidding conditions are not contested, a contractor is to be selected by the summer of 2017. The system is to be implemented up to 24 months after the selection of the contractor.

The price for a single trip on Sofia's public transport was increased to 1.60 leva from 1.00 lev in June 2016. The price of the different types of travel cards remained unchanged, except for a yearly card whose price was reduced to 365 leva from 500 leva.

Roumyana Milanova of the Sofia Urban Mobility Centre said that a recent analysis of the sales of tickets and cards shows that sales of cards increased 46 per cent after the ticket price rise, and sales of tickets dropped by 43 per cent. A considerable increase was reported in sales of yearly travel cards.