Municipality disposed to offer guarantees to minibus owners. Analysis by Info-Prim Neo, Part 2

The Chisinau City Hall is ready to provide guarantees to the owners of minibuses that transport passengers in the capital so as they can work without impediments. Mayor General of Chisinau Dorin Chirtoaca asked the General Public Transport and Communication Ways Division to propose solutions to overcome the crisis situation created in private transport after the Government decided to take the reequipped minibuses out of routes. “We must assure the transporters that they can safely invest in means of transport and that the City Hall will not hinder them in their activity,” Chirtoaca said, worried about a possible blockage in the municipal transport if all the reequipped minibuses are withdrawn. Veaceslav Tarna, head of the Division, reasoned that the carriers would not encounter difficulties if the means of transports corresponded to the requirements for passenger transportation. “There are several solutions to the minibus problem and namely: the Government should review the decision to remove the reequipped minibuses from routes; the economic agents should purchase new means of transport, including with larger capacity; the municipality should review the fare calculation schemes so as this activity is rentable and the minibus owner is able to recover the costs of the new transport means,” Tarna said. Veaceslav Tarna also said that the route administrators and the City Hall should sign contacts for a certain period of activity. Until present the transporters worked under authorisations. According to the cited source, the City Hall could provide guarantees to the private transporters that are ready to buy means of transport of large capacity, of 16 to 30 places, that are efficient during rush hours. “The routes must be balanced. High capacity transport means should work in the rush hours so that the passengers do not wait at the stops, and small and medium-sized units should work during the rest of the day,” Tarna specified. Referring to the Mayor General’s idea that the transportation by minibuses should be administered by the municipality, Tarna said that this initiative is not opportune because it incurs high costs for opening service centers, technical examination centers and medical units for the drivers. The Mayor of Chisinau does not rule out the possibility that in the future he will seek the extension of the ten-year working life of the minibuses if these correspond to the technical conditions. “We will raise this question maybe, but only when the standards are met in all the areas,” Dorin Chirtoaca said, quoted by Info-Prim Neo.