30 January 2023
Ombudsman Diana Kovacheva sent an opinion to the Chairman of the Sofia Municipal Council Georgi Georgiev, requesting that the new tariff policy for urban transport in Sofia be revised so as to preserve the transport documents that allow more flexible travel for public transport users.
The reason for this is the new public consultations initiated this month on the draft Ordinance amending and supplementing the Ordinance on the rules and conditions for travelling by public urban transport in the territory of Sofia Municipality, caused by great public discontent.
The Ombudsman alerted that the institution was receiving complaints from pensioners that they were deprived from the right to travel with long-term personalised preference travel documents, which they referred to as discrimination.
“Pursuant to item 1 of Article 29 (1) of the Ordinance on the rules and conditions for travelling by public urban transport in the territory of Sofia Municipality, entitled to that right are only persons receiving pension under Chapter VI of the Social Insurance Code (SIC), who have reached the age referred to in Article 68 (1) to (3) of that Code – the general principle of retirement (for example women aged 60 years and 10 months and insurance period of 35 years and 2 months),” stated the Ombudsman.
Prof. Kovacheva listed the excluded pensioners under – Article 68a of the SIC – one year earlier than the required age, having the required insurance period; under Article 69 of the SIC – military personnel (age 52 years and 10 months and insurance period 27 years); under Article 69b of the SIC – working under the conditions of first and second categories of work; under Article 69c of the SIC – teachers, etc.
She is categorical that such a restriction is unjust and unjustified, since it deprives them of the right to travel on preferential terms, which is granted to another group, and the only difference between them is the conditions for obtaining pension rights. She therefore proposed that Chapter IV of the Ordinance should cover all pensioners, regardless of how they acquired pension rights.
“I believe that Sofia Municipality Council will consider all the problems raised and will make decisions, taking into account the transport needs of the citizens of the capital and their right to affordable and convenient urban transport”, the Ombudsman wrote.
In her opinion the Ombudsman expressed support for the amendments related to the recovery of expired transport documents, such as a monthly road pass for one route, a monthly metro pass and a monthly road pass (or metro) for one route for students.
Kovacheva is adamant that the disappearance of these transport documents has caused mass discontent among citizens who, in their signals to her, want them to be reintroduced.
“As I have already said, travellers should not be deprived of the right to choose between different transport documents in accordance with their specific needs”, the Ombudsman wrote.
However, Kovacheva pointed out that the proposed changes did not include the reinstatement of another widely used transport document, such as the ticket for 10 trips.
According to her, this ticket meets the transport needs of another category of passengers – those who travel incidentally by public transport, as well as the guests of the capital – which is why she insisted on its recovery.
“I also think that the 30+ ticket should be reconsidered to 45+ because many people complain that they don't have enough travel time. An increase in the number of passengers travelling in urban transport can only be achieved through a customised tariff policy”, the Ombudsman stressed.
Diana Kovacheva added that no measures had been taken to address the problem with the significant and sharp increase in the price of the monthly urban transport pass for people with disabilities, with reduced working capacity above 71% degree of disability/degree of permanently reduced working capacity, without entitlement to assistance.
“As noted in previous opinions of the Ombudsman, the new 10 BGN price of the disability pass does not take into account the difficulties of citizens in the context of a serious inflation and a deteriorating economic environment”, the national public defender pointed out.
In addition Prof. Kovacheva wrote: “I support the changes concerning the exemption from the validation obligation as a condition for regularity of long-term transport documents (Article 11 (1)), as well as the cancellation of the fine for invalid transport document (Article 46 (3)). I have already presented the arguments for this.“
However, she drew attention to the proposed amendment to Article 18 (1) of the Ordinance, according to which, when travelling by means of public urban transport, passengers must validate their transport documents and comply with the provisions of that Ordinance.
In her opinion the Ombudsman emphasized that this text was in conflict with Article 11 (1) and therefore it should be specified that the text referred to short-term transport documents, and added that this also referred to the addition in Article 15 (1) item 1 – before the word “trips” the word “validated” should be inserted.
With regard to validation, Diana Kovacheva is adamant that, in addition to imposing obligations on travellers, the quality, accessibility and efficiency of the introduced ticket system must be improved.
She also listed some specific problems faced by the people who approached her: malfunctioning vehicle validators, difficulties with validating the more expensive paper ticket sold by the driver of the vehicle, draining of amounts from individuals’ e-wallets and bank cards.
“Passenger accident insurance is stated as one of the reasons for validation in the Report, but what happens when an insured event occurs in these cases – when the ticket is not validated due to a malfunctioning device, for example,” asked the Ombudsm.
The Ombudsman drew attention to another fact: when a citizen validates a paper ticket, he must place it at a certain angle against the validating device, otherwise it cannot be validated.
“I am asking, are there any instructions for this procedure in the vehicle? The answer is no. Not everyone knows and can watch the CUM special video clip about this”, said Diana Kovacheva.
She also emphasized that affected citizens signalled about money being withdrawn from their bank cards, which were in their bags, to buy a ticket, and this happened when passing in front of the validating device.
“They find out about this from a subsequent SMS from the bank serving them, which means that if they do not have such a bank service, they may never find out about the amounts withdrawn. In other words, there is a need to protect citizens against such illegal draining of funds, to take immediate action to improve the technical operation of the electronic billing system,” said Prof. Kovacheva.