Private buses are back on the street, a public call for 16 routes has been issued

Photo: "Sloboda Transport"

The agreement between the mayor Danela Arsovska and the private carriers is getting its concrete conclusion today, with which the citizens of Skopje should have a more normal city transport from next month compared to the past months when the number of buses was reduced on all lines.
The City of Skopje, as announced, today published a public call for carriers on as many as 16 lines. The lines are divided into three packages, for which the minimum required technical-technological elements for the maintenance of the lines are specified.

According to the announcement, the first package includes the lines numbered 23, 45, 61, 63 and 73, for the service of which at least 35 buses and 76 drivers are needed. The second package refers to transportation on lines 9, 11, 11A, 12, 47A and 55. In order for the buses to run regularly on these routes, 39 buses and 83 drivers are needed. And the third package includes lines 19, 20, 22, 52 and 54, for which a total of 41 buses and 87 drivers are required.

We are talking about lines on which, until four months ago, only the carriers from "Sloboda vravoz" and "Makeexpress" drove, and after their protest and after their contracts were terminated due to non-fulfillment of obligations, they were "covered" by JSP Skopje. Now, according to the published announcement and in the next period after the selection of the carriers, only part of these lines will be operated jointly by both private companies and JSP, as indicated on lines 9, 19, 22, 62, 61 and 63, while on the rest 10 lines from the advertisement will be driven only by private individuals who will be selected on the advertisement.

Unlike the previous two announcements, this one should be successful, because the private carriers led by Jovica Zafirovski, after the meetings in the City of Skopje, stated that they will apply to the announcements because they are satisfied with the conditions offered to them.

We will all register for that public call, there is no reason not to register, the conditions suit us. We expect that by the 20th of this month we will start work - Zafirovski said after the meeting.

However, the return of private buses to the streets will not happen so early because the deadline for submitting applications to the public announcement is March 21, 2023 until 12:27, and the opening of bids will take place at noon on March XNUMX in the City of Skopje.

The allocation of the packages - lines determined in point 1.2 of this announcement, will be carried out by way of evaluation of the submitted complete and timely closed applications, based on established criteria specified in the documentation for public announcement. The opening of the submitted closed applications will be held on March 27, 2023 at 12:13 in shed number XNUMX - the announcement says.

Line packages will be granted for a period of up to two years, with the possibility of extension, but not more than a total of five years.

Regarding the selection of carriers that will perform the public transport on the requested lines, the advertisement lists several criteria that will be used to select the most favorable offer, such as rolling stock, human resources, technical logistics and experience in performing municipal line transport of passengers.

In this public call, "Sloboda Prevoz" and "Makeexpress" will not be able to participate due to the obstacles arising from the previous, now terminated contract, which provided for a ban on participation in a public call if the contract is terminated before the expiration of the same and due to their fault - they informed from the City of Skopje these days.

After the agreement reached between the City of Skopje and the private carriers, who have been out of work for several months, and their buses are parked, the people of Skopje can finally hope that their four-month ordeal will be put to an end and that they will no longer have to worry about catching a bus every day. nor worry about getting to their jobs or school on time.

However, this only returns things to the status quo before the protests started. This means that there will be as many buses as there were, and whether some of them will continue to be "broken" remains to be seen, since currently a good part of the JSP buses that are part of the public transport are below all standards - shaky , tattered and dirty.

But there is no question of modernizing public transportation. There is nothing in sight of the announced 250 new buses, and the BRT project has been forgotten somewhere. But considering what happened to the people of Skopje in the past period, the return to the old is better than nothing.

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