New public transport strategy in Chisinau

Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC) approved on Thursday, June 15, the development strategy of Chisinau public transport, elaborated by Business Consulting Institute (BCI) and the Technical University of Moldova, with the financial support of OSI/LGI Budapest. The document was approved by almost all the councilors, excepting the social-democrat faction and several independent councilors. Initially, the Councilors proposed remitting the strategy for reexamination, justifying that some actions included in the Action Plan are too expensive and have no mechanisms that would attract private investments in constructing roadways. One of the authors of the strategy, the municipal councilor Mihai Roscovan, head of BCI, specified that a main objective of the strategy is attracting investments in public transport area, developing concurrency and competition. According to the sources, the documents attached to the Strategy include the normative framework which will be further approved by CMC, inclusively the Rules on public transport functioning in Chisinau municipality; the Rules on organizing auctions for the transport routes: methodology of calculation, modification and approval of the tariffs in the public transport, as well as the proposal regarding the reorganization of the Department for General Public Transport and Communication Ways by separating the subdivision that deals with public transport. In case CMC will approve these acts, private investors will be interested in this area, Roscovan states. Before voting the strategy, CMC dismissed the deputy head of DGPTCW Vladimir Buzovschi , on the proposal of the municipal councilor Ion Mamaliga, justifying that he did not present in time the draft strategy. The development strategy of the public transport in the Chisinau municipality includes improvement measures of the public transport, recommendations regarding the calculation and regulation methodology of the tariffs in public transport, elaboration of the subsidizing methodology of the transport operators, of the social protection policy and of an efficient model of collecting the payment in public transport. The Action Plan of the strategy includes turning to good account 3.4 billion lei until 2010, for the development of roadway networks and transport structure, inclusively constructing artificial objectives (viaducts, bridges, highways), and constructing trolleybus lines. Elaborating the development strategy of the public transport was solicited by CMC in the last summer, being one of the conditions for the adjustment of the tariffs in the public transport of the Chisinau municipality.