Increased flexibility will be ensured on the bus services market. From now on, the local public authorities will be able to decide to open or modify regular passenger routes. Mircea Păscăluță, secretary of state of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Reginald Development, said there are tens of situations when the people and the mayors ask the central authorities to open new routes. But the limitations on opening new routes and the limitations that existed until now didn’t allow this to happen.
“We help the mayor’s offices and mayors to offer transport to the inhabitants. The local public authorities will be able to intervene in the process of opening and modifying particular routes, regular routes. This modification is extremely important as today there are a number of nonfunctional criteria for forming the network of routes in national traffic in which the main role is played by the initiative of the transport operators, while the powers of the local public authorities are not at all stipulated,” said the secretary of state.
According to him, it is essential for the local public authorities to play an active role in determining transport routes as they possess updated information about the flow of passengers and know best the needs of locals. Changes to the schedule of routes could be made outside the preset period, offering increased flexibility and passenger-oriented services. So far, the changed for inter-district transport were made once a year.
Mircea Păscăluță noted that the reduction of bureaucracy is another important aspect. The road transport operators can say goodbye to the roadmap as this was removed from the list of strict monitoring documents. To further reduce bureaucracy, a number of other documents needed by drivers onboard will also be excluded as these already exist in the information systems of the National Road Transport Agency. It goes to information about technical inspection and certificates of professional competence.
As regards taxation and digitization, there will be implemented the information systems e-ticket, e-GPS etc. By the end of 2024, tickets will start to be issued in the form of fiscal receipts or electronic documents. There were introduced new clear provisions concerning the interaction between road transport operators and bus service providers, including the financial side of the relations.
An important step was taken towards liberalizing the bus service providers by excluding the provisions that regulated the monopoly on the opening of bus stations and the limitations related to the financial capacity and satisfaction of a locality with bus stations. “We eliminated the existing contradictions referring to the period and method of issuing permits. After the eight-year period of validity of the permit expires, the road transport operators will be able to work for four more years if they meet a number of conditions that will be regulated by the Government. We modify the tariff policy, namely the regulations concerning district fares. District councils will be able to adopt fares at district level,” stated Mircea Păscăluță.
