A new cocktail of discomfort, with protests in public transport and increases in taxi fares

The workers in public transport are going on new strikes starting this morning. Electric rail, metro, buses and trolleys will run from 9am to 9pm, and trams from 8am-10pm. The suburban rail will operate normally.

On Wednesday the 5th, buses will not run from 12pm-4pm and on Monday the 10th from 11am-4pm. However, for the same days, employee committees of other means are oriented towards 24hr strikes.

Despite the fact that ticket increases have not been announced, sources say that the standard fare is expected to reach 1,30 euro, while increases will come for travelcards as well.

The ministry of Infrastructure has announced that they will decrease their involvement in public transport ticket funding from 70% to 50%. It is considered certain that final decisions will be announced next month with the submission of the bill for restructuring public transport.

Serious increases, which in certain cases will reach or exceed 70%, are expected for OSE tickets, in the context of the Organization’s plan to move their fare onto a similar level with KTEL.
 
Increases in taxi fares

Meanwhile, taxi fare increases have already been in place since New Year’s due to the VAT revaluation from 11% to 13%.

The starting fare has gone from 1,16 to 1,19 euro and the price per kilometre has reached 0,68 euro for single tariff and 1,19 for double tariff, while the minimum fare is now at 3,16 euros.

According to the taxi drivers association, they had asked the ministry of Economy not to increase the VAT rate for transportation, and that they join the low VAT rate category. However, these requests were turned down.

It should be noted that taxi fares had already gone up once before in the past year, specifically last July, due to the classification of the profession in the 11% VAT rate category.