In February 2015, the Department of Transport issued an order “On amendments to the register of regular transportation routes...”, which reduced the number of urban ground transport routes by 2.5 times. The right to operate the remaining routes for private owners was awarded at auctions, which from April to November 2015 were held by the structure of the State Public Institution “Transportation Organizer” subordinate to the Department of Transport. The winners were only eight companies: Transavtoliz (Autoline Group of Companies), Gepart, Taxi Park No. 20, GorTaxi, Auto-Carz, Trans-Way, Alfa-Grant and TK "Rico." They entered into five-year government contracts with the city, and the first buses of the new type appeared on the streets of Moscow in May 2016.
Under the terms of the new agreement, carriers must completely modernize their operating system. Payment in cash is a thing of the past - now each bus is equipped with a validator that accepts Troika, Ediny, TAT or 90 Minutes tickets and social cards, the driver has the right to sell tickets for one trip on the spot. The buses of all official carriers are painted blue with the Moscow Transport logo. The name of the carrier company can only be seen on the right wing of the car. All vehicles in the carrier’s fleet must be no older than two years, comply with an environmental class of at least Euro 4, and be equipped with the GLONASS system, a set of video cameras and a climate control system. The changes have not yet affected two districts of Moscow - ZelAO and TiNAO - and those carriers that operate between Moscow and the region.
Queue for a minibus with the Moscow Transport logo. New Mosgortrans buses replaced duplicate ground transport vehicles of non-state carriers (Photo: Petr Zuev/TASS)
“The minibus is becoming a thing of the past”
“The route taxi as an outdated and unsafe form of transport is becoming a thing of the past,” comments the press service of the Department of Transport.
“The private transportation market in Moscow was uncivilized: tariffs were higher than in municipal transport, in the fight for passengers, drivers violated the speed limit, stopped in the wrong places, cars did not undergo technical inspection on time,” agrees with the position of the department, the general director of the transport company Gepart » Murad Sultanov, one of the winners of the competition. The main advantage of the new reform is the unity of the system, says Oleg Savelyev, General Director of Autoline Translight Management Company: he expects that the rules established by the state will motivate drivers to strictly follow the routes, and passengers to get used to the fact that it is no longer possible to get off at traffic lights and pedestrian crossings .
The downside of the reform is that according to the Moscow Transport Union, before the reform, 67 private carriers operated on the market; after August 15, only eight companies can legally operate routes. Thus, 59 firms and individual entrepreneurs had to stop their work on city routes.
Now they can only use their cars for corporate routes, serving tourists, weddings and funerals. For example, large hypermarkets located outside the Moscow Ring Road enter into commercial agreements with carriers - they pay for the company to transport customers from the final metro station to shopping center, and free for passengers. But all these are half measures. “There is simply nowhere to put the 2.5 thousand vacant buses. There are two development options: either strict dumping will begin on the market for these irregular transport services, or private owners will begin to sell their buses en masse and return them to leasing companies,” Sveshnikov believes. According to him, some companies did go onto prohibited routes. The Department of Transport promises to catch and fine all illegal immigrants.
Carriers who have lost the right to operate on routes are reluctant to communicate with the press: two companies refused to give comments to RBC, and the management of several other companies could not be reached by phone.
Only the Moscow Transport Union actively opposes innovations. “This decision is a smooth approach to the monopolization of the market by the city authorities,” says Yuri Sveshnikov. — For many years, private carriers actually performed a municipal function, without receiving any subsidies from the state and replenishing the budget with taxes. Now they are deprived of the right to work in the market, allegedly because the private minibuses were in disrepair and did not meet certain requirements.” This cannot be true, says Sveshnikov: in order to obtain and maintain a license, carriers are required to undergo technical inspection twice a year.
Short Game
Why are there so few players left in the market? The right to use 211 private routes, which the department decided to retain, was awarded from April to November 2015 during 63 auctions announced by the Moscow Department of Competition Policy, the total value of all contracts was 47.5 billion rubles. Bidding was conducted to reduce prices: the state customer set the starting amount of payments for the provision of transport services, and the auction was won by the one who was ready to provide services at the lowest price.
For small companies that could not qualify for servicing large routes, small lots were specially allocated, says Murad Sultanov from Gepart. “The main stopping factor was the financial component: in case of victory, the company had to update all its rolling stock. Not everyone was ready for such expenses and did not go to auctions,” says Oleg Savelyev from Autoline Translight. Thus, for 49 out of 63 lots, tenders did not take place, and contracts were concluded with a single applicant. “Even in cases where more than one application was submitted to the competition, bidding was often not held, since none of the participants took a step down,” Yuri Sveshnikov knows. In such cases, the company that submitted its application first won.
Entrepreneurs organized a boycott of state auctions because of the obviously unprofitable terms of the state contract, Sveshnikov is sure. “There was no point in playing short - the starting price already included a 30 percent loss for the carrier, since it could not cover the costs of fuel and insurance, and the annual inflation included in this five-year period was 4.2% instead of real 13%,” he says. At the same time, 70% of payments are a fixed fee per kilometer driven, 30% are remuneration for scheduled transportation of passengers, with the exception of beneficiaries and holders of “long” passes (and they are the majority of passengers).
According to Sveshnikov, the only company out of 16 members of the Moscow Transport Union that entered into a government contract for the smallest route is now showing a monthly loss of about 140 thousand rubles. Major players also admit that the reform has changed their economy: for example, the first months of work under a government contract reduced Gepart’s profit to zero, now the company is operating in a slight plus. “We expected the worst - we expected to work in the red for some time,” adds Sultanov. Autoline Translight was unable to announce the company’s financial results since the launch of the new buses. “I can say one thing: our financiers took the matter very seriously and took into account all possible factors. If we decided to work according to the new rules, it means it’s beneficial for us,” says Savelyev.
In March of this year, ten suspended private carriers filed a lawsuit alleging failure to comply with federal law against the Department of Transportation. The Moscow Transport Union, under whose auspices the lawsuit was filed, explained that, according to the carriers, the new order of the Department of Transport is not valid, since it was drawn up contrary to Federal Law No. 220 “On the organization of regular transportation of passengers...”. The law, adopted in July 2015, stated that all carriers officially operating at the time the law came into force must be issued by authorities with route maps and certificates for the right to operate routes for at least five years, that is, until 2020. The lawsuit will be considered by the court on September 16. Also in March, the Moscow Transport Union sent a statement to the Moscow prosecutor's office about non-compliance with federal legislation, but has still not received a response.
“Federal Law No. 220 does not approve the mandatory inclusion in the register of regular transportation routes of everyone who previously received permission - it speaks of the freedom of the state to refuse or include a carrier in the register,” says lawyer Sevan Avalyan. — Another thing is that there is not a single provision that would terminate the validity of previously issued transportation permits, which is logical - according to general rule the law has no retroactive effect unless it says otherwise.”
Murad Sultanov from the Gepart company, which received the right to operate on 20 routes in Moscow, claims that the reform has been actively discussed since 2013. According to him, the Department of Transport, right up to the start of the auctions, assembled working groups in which representatives of all private carriers operating in Moscow could take part, that is, the carriers were aware of the upcoming changes even before the appearance of the document limiting the list of routes.
The price of reform
Before the August changes, 70% of the transportation market was occupied by the state company Mosgortrans, 30% was shared by 67 commercial companies. The ten largest accounted for almost 80% of passenger traffic, including 50% for the largest player, Autoline Translight. The state's share will remain the same, the Department of Transport promises. But in the commercial transportation market there was a shuffling of the cards: according to Murad Sultanov (“Gepart”), 59 companies that lost the right to operate occupied about 25% of the private transportation market. This share was divided among themselves mainly by large players who were previously market leaders. Thus, Autoline Translight, serving 40% of all passenger traffic, received 128 routes for use and increased its share in the private market to 60%, the second most important player, Taxi Park No. 20, operates 24 routes, and Gepart increased the number of routes has doubled - from ten to 20 lines.
According to the Department of Transport, private carriers invested about 10 billion rubles. for the renewal of rolling stock. The Moscow government has allocated more than 52 billion rubles for the implementation of the new transport model. The private transportation market, according to authorities, amounts to 13.6 billion rubles.
How will the redistribution of the urban transportation market turn out for Muscovites? The Department of Transport itself and the companies associated with it under government contracts naturally look at the situation positively and believe that the first difficulties will soon be eliminated. It will take no more than a week to restore normal operation of the transport system, Gepart believes.
“It’s strange to hear about an improvement in the quality of transport services, given that the number of buses has decreased by 2.5 times, and 12.5 thousand people have lost their jobs,” Yuri Sveshnikov disagrees. “It is clear that the 1.5 million passengers who used the services of private carriers every day will not have enough of the remaining routes. A holy place is never empty: in some areas, illegal immigrants immediately appeared on the routes that stopped operating. And they turn out to be in demand: if they need to travel, people don’t care what color the minibus is.”
Comfortable environment with the hands of Urbantin. Cancellation of minibuses, crooked tiles and future demolition August 17th, 2016
The tiles were used to lay the favorite place for Muscovites to walk on roller skates and bicycles - in Luzhniki, on the embankment. Tell me, why are there tiles here? Who needed to destroy what Muscovites are familiar with and need?
That's how it became
And that's how it was 
"There will be no minibuses! Walk.
The Department of Transportation canceled another 370 routes.
Remember how the Moscow authorities actively encouraged us to switch to public transport? It was under this slogan that in Moscow in 2012-2013 they began to implement paid parking, fine car owners and tow cars. Then, three years ago, on the eve of the Moscow mayoral elections, buses and trolleybuseswe walked one after another. Before one had time to leave the stop, the next one was approaching....
In three years the situation has changed dramatically. Public transport was getting worse and less frequent. Back in May, intervals on routes increased noticeably. In our Northern District, problems arose among passengers on routes No. 79m, 167m, 179m, 200m, 677m. Commercial routes were canceled and no additional buses were introduced. And some confusion began with the bus routes...
Around spring, at meetings with our candidate for the State Duma Yulia Galyamina (more details http://galiamina.ru/ #rec5556494 ) residents began to complain about the poor performance of public transport. “You stand at a stop for thirty minutes, but there is no bus. Then it turns out that the required route was canceled, and now completely different, unfamiliar numbers operate here. There are no announcements at bus stops,” people say.
And last Monday, the Department of Transport simply canceled another 370 routes. That is, millions of passengers were left to the mercy of fate. Many of these routes had no alternative. They simply didn’t bother to notify people in advance, as is our custom. In the Khoroshevsky district, residents say, minibus 435a to Belorusskaya was canceled. They now wait for a trolleybus for half an hour, risking being late for work.
The Department of Transport says that they do not plan to launch minibuses on those routes where buses or trolleybuses already operate. That is, we are waiting for queues, jostling and long waits. It is impossible to find information about which minibuses have been canceled in our Northern District from Monday on the capital's portals - everything is for the comfort and convenience of residents. And this is the attitude of the mayor’s office towards us...." writes Yabloko candidate for the State Duma, Yulia Galyamina.
Well, for dessert, as always, fresh “Our Street” tiles. Repaired. Gorgeously simple. We admire it. And this is not a separate area, such hand-wringing is everywhere.
Newspaper Lane. There are no crowds here, it’s generally quiet, but where does this come from? Everything is broken and crooked.
This is what a comfortable environment looks like through the eyes of Urbantine. Chistye Prudy. A deserted parade ground and a giant dummy food. There is no food here now, there are now many, many tiles. Tundra replica.
And a little Tverskaya
Photo: Svetlana Grishina, Mike All, Olga Nezvetskaya, Sergey Sakov
From the beginning of May to mid-June, private carriers will begin to enter the new standard work.
Only those carriers that have proven their compliance with the strict requirements of the state contract will serve passengers on city routes. The winners of the competition were 8 companies, which divided among themselves 211 city routes. Three routes have already been operating according to the new model since last year - these are No. 199k, 320, 368. By mid-June, another 208 routes in Moscow will be transferred to the new standards.
“Minibuses” will be replaced by buses of small, medium and large capacity, depending on the passenger flow on the route. There are routes that run through narrow streets - according to all regulations, any other buses except low-capacity buses cannot operate there. On the busiest routes, high-capacity buses are most relevant. On such routes, the city plans to update the rolling stock with the transition to new low-floor models.
Advantages of the new model
· Payment for travel with a “Troika” card and “TAT”, “Ediny”, “90 minutes” tickets;
· Validity of all city benefits (payment of travel by social cards with a transport application);
· Strict adherence to schedule;
· Comfortable travel conditions (cleanliness in the cabin, air conditioning, ramps for people with limited mobility);
· High-capacity buses will appear on the busiest routes, which means more seats for passengers.
Economic benefit
Currently, passengers pay for route taxi fares in cash at the rates set by the carriers. New commercial buses have validators installed. They allow you to pay for travel using city tariff menu tickets. This will allow Muscovites to save several thousand rubles a year. Thus, travel on a private carrier bus with an average price of 35 rubles per trip per year costs almost 17 thousand rubles, with 2 trips on weekdays. When paying for the same number of trips with a TAT pass, the cost is reduced to 8 thousand rubles, that is, half. Private buses will also have all the benefits that exist in public transport today.
Schedule
Commercial buses will operate strictly on schedule. The start and end times of movement are individual for each route. This is determined by the intensity of passenger traffic. The same applies to the intervals between flights.
Monitoring the fulfillment of government contract requirements
The fulfillment of the terms of the contract will be monitored by specialists from the State Public Institution “Transportation Organizer”. Special commissions, which will include a representative of the carrier, will check the execution of the government contract. If a government contract is violated, the carrier will be subject to penalty points. At the end of the month they are summed up, and this value affects the size of the company’s remuneration.
Follow the information at ground transport stops and on the Unified Transport Portal http://transport.mos.ru/ in the ground transport section.
Changes in bus routes:
Without a doubt, the current year will be remembered for a number of bright and significant events in the field of public transport: the launch of the Moscow Central Circle (MCR), the dismantling of trolleybus lines in the city center, the reorganization of ground transport routes in the central part of the city, the introduction of clock intervals and the removal of turnstiles on all tram lines routes of the Krasnopresnenskaya tram network. The same list will include another important event: the transfer of private carriers to a contract model of work on city orders, in other words, the elimination of “minibuses” in the most “classical” sense of the word.
We have already written about why minibuses are bad, now we can only repeat the main points, which have not changed at all:
1. In minibuses, travel cards, single city tickets and the Troika card are not valid. If a person who regularly uses public transportation in the city has a travel card, he always has to pay separately for travel on a minibus. This is inconvenient, entails an increase in transport costs, and no discounts for a large number of trips are cumulative.
2. The vast majority of minibuses are small and cramped. The distance between the seats is always minimal (to squeeze in more), so it’s simply impossible to get into a minibus with luggage or a baby stroller.
3. A special pleasure is the payment system: when the entire salon first hands over the fare, and then hands over the change back.
4. Minibuses do not run according to a schedule, but according to capacity. In fact, this is pure mockery of passengers, which for some reason they tolerate and consider normal. Sometimes you can just sit for 10-15 minutes in a minibus, because it is not full and is not moving, during which time 2 buses manage to pass.
5. Technical condition Many minibuses raise big questions and concerns, and drivers often work without any compliance with labor laws.
6. Compliance with traffic rules by minibus drivers has long been a topic for jokes. At the same time, it causes serious road accidents with human casualties. In terms of safety, the minibus was and remains the most dangerous type of public transport.
7. Minibuses do not invest at all in the infrastructure (the same stops or settling areas) that they use.
But the main thing is that all minibuses operate in “gray” mode. That is, the funds received from fares are in reality not controlled by anyone.
This creates the ground for a huge number of financial frauds.
We should not forget that public transport is a public good. This means that all income coming from it must be public - that is, controlled by the city. The case when private carriers work on the existing city infrastructure only in the most profitable and “tasty” places only means that the city is not receiving a huge amount of funds because of this, which could be used for the development of the state carrier Mosgortrans, its renewal rolling stock, repair of its infrastructure (including the trolleybus network) and even the abolition of turnstiles.
To put it simply, to answer the most popular question of recent days, “Who was bothered by minibuses?” quite simply: minibuses interfered with the entire city and, first of all, with the public transport users themselves. They interfered with motorists (mainly by parking in the wrong places and stopping wherever the passenger wanted) and other public transport - often the crowd of waiting minibuses simply did not allow buses and trolleybuses to approach the stops normally. That is why minibuses were and remain a relic of the past, which the city should have said goodbye to long ago.
Which path exactly did the city decide to take under these conditions?
In fact, Moscow has chosen the most correct and logical path, which is equally a compromise for the city, passengers and private carriers.
It was announced that all routes in the city would be operated by order of the Department of Transport to the extent strictly stipulated by the government contract. The city will order from the carrier a certain number of flights on certain routes, for which the carrier will receive money from the city. All income from the transportation of passengers goes to the city treasury. Carriers also undertake to accept all types of city passes and discount tickets.
To do this, at the first stage, an analysis of the route network of Mosgortrans and private carriers was carried out to identify duplicate routes (looking ahead, let’s say that this task was far from being completed perfectly). After this, the city began to put routes up for auction, following which it signed a contract with carriers to service the routes for a period of 5 years. This whole procedure took place last year; around the beginning of May of this year, carriers began to operate routes.
All routes that were affected by the “new model” of ground public transport can be divided into three categories:
Routes previously served by private carriers, which are now being “socialized”.
Routes previously serviced by Mosgortrans, which are being transferred to service by private carriers under government contracts. Duplicate minibuses are closed.
Routes of private carriers that are closed altogether due to the strengthening of the work of duplicate routes of Mosgortrans.
In total, it was planned that non-state carriers would enter 211 city routes (67 were to be transferred from Mosgortrans).
In general, the picture looks quite logical, but how did it actually go?
Already from about the second week of May, when private carriers were supposed to enter the routes en masse, the first problems began to appear. To begin with, carriers began to massively miss the deadlines for launching their routes. The reason for this was quite banal: they did not have enough buses.
LIAZ-5292.65 carrier "Piteravto"
The fact is that in order to operate on routes, carriers had to massively purchase buses that meet the strict requirements of the city. Since purchasing used European buses was impossible due to the requirements, and the products of Chinese manufacturers had become more expensive due to exchange rates, the products of only two factories in the CIS actually met the requirements of the capital: LIAZ and MAZ. At first, it was reported that the Avtoline group would purchase products from the Belarusian manufacturer for its routes in the city; nothing was known in advance about the preferences of other carriers. But this is where the first problem occurred, when it turned out that due to problems with the supply of components, MAZ would not be able to fulfill the order of Avtoline and other private carriers in full. Under these conditions, the main burden fell on... the same LIAZ. It is not surprising that the plant was simply choked with so many orders, because in less than six months they had to assemble several hundred buses for private owners, and this was superimposed on another large order from Mosgortrans (which then, by agreement, had to be postponed to the second half of 2016).
MAZ-203 on route 26.
As a result, the delivery of these buses continued not only in May, but also at the beginning of summer, although orders have not yet been fully fulfilled. In order to prevent collapse, Mosgortrans transferred a number of routes to private owners much later established deadlines(when the buses arrived), and in exceptional cases, he was forced to return to their service again, because the situation with the non-exit of passengers crossed all reasonable boundaries.
Several other features of the “new model” of ground transport are associated with rolling stock. Firstly, this model does not have particularly large capacity buses (in other words, “accordions”). The reason for this remains completely unknown to anyone, although a number of routes diverted from Mosgortrans to private owners were previously served by just such buses. To compensate for this, private traders had to work at shorter intervals and big amount flights, but as practice has shown, this solution is far from obvious.
Evolution of rolling stock on route No. 714.
So one of the most difficult situations arose on bus route No. 714 (Rizhsky Station - Pavel Korchagin St.). Before the transition to the “new model,” the route was served entirely by accordion buses, but now it is served simply by large-capacity buses. Yes, there were 3 more of them on the route than before, but this did not solve the problem of overcrowded buses at all. The only relief came only with the arrival of summer, when passenger traffic naturally decreases, but September is coming, which means we will most likely see overcrowded buses again.
In addition, another incident occurred with the rolling stock. A large number of routes of private carriers under contracts must be served by medium-capacity buses. But the problem turned out to be that the city’s requirements for this type of rolling stock forgot to include a ban on the hood arrangement. As a result, one of the largest carriers, the Avtoline group, decided to purchase Iveco VSN 700 “oversized” minibuses for such routes - such a large half-plastic invention, created on the basis of an ordinary cargo van.
Nizhny Novgorod-VSN700 (IVECO) - became the main symbol of minibus reform.
VSN700 body without trim. It's scary to think what would happen if a truck drove into it.
Everything would be fine, but this bus is not low-floor. Only formally, the rear area has a low floor, where you can enter with a wheelchair or large luggage, but by default, boarding is done at the first door, because It is she who has a validator, where the traditional 3 steps are located at the entrance.
Note that such buses partially entered the routes that were served by Mosgortrans low-floor buses. It turns out that conditions for passengers have not just worsened, but have rolled back 10 years. Let’s add to this the extremely narrow passages, rigid suspension, ineffective air conditioning, and also the fact that the purchased buses have a manual transmission (carriers try to minimize the cost of purchasing rolling stock), and it turns out that the “new model” not only did not give passengers a new level of comfort, but also, on the contrary, deprived of the old one. It is noteworthy that, unlike LIAZ, the production of these “overgrown” ones managed to rivet not just a lot of them, but even more than necessary. As a result, now such buses sometimes operate on routes where the contract provided for the operation of regular classic high-capacity buses! For example, this is exactly what has been happening on route No. 282 for several months now.
However, the first months of work of non-state carriers under government contracts turned out to be an unspoken transition period. According to Federal Law 220-FZ of July 13, 2015 on the cancellation of routes, carriers servicing them must be notified by the authorized body that made such a decision at least 180 days in advance. Therefore, all the old, classic “minibuses”, canceled by order of the Moscow Department of Transport dated February 15, 2016, could safely continue to operate until August 15, 2016. But on August 15, that very “X” day came, when all minibuses that did not correspond to the new model were supposed to disappear from the city (not counting New Moscow and the Moscow-region routes). True, several small carriers did not agree with this decision and decided to try to challenge this order in court, but their share of transportation is so insignificant that we will not pay much attention to this fact.
On August 15, passengers who came out of habit to public transport stops did not wait for their traditional minibuses. Complaints and angry posts poured in in social networks, articles in the media. Why did such a long-implemented reform fail at the very last and most important stage?
The first and biggest mistake was made in terms of informing people. When new routes were launched, as a rule, everything was limited to just a few small announcements at stops, where in very small print a list of canceled routes was indicated, and in the entire district at once.
It must be admitted that this format is extremely unsuccessful from the point of view of perception by the average passenger. Therefore, it would not be an exaggeration to say that many passengers simply did not know about the cancellation of minibuses on August 15 and any compensating routes to replace them.
The second problem that began to appear was the movement intervals. Minibuses left many residential areas in the morning with a frequency of 2-3 minutes, and now they have been replaced by a larger bus, but with an interval of 10 minutes. Of course, in some cases the compensating route runs more often, but this is rather an exception. True, here we should also note the fact that in the evenings near the metro, minibuses usually departed less often. It’s just that passengers, as a rule, didn’t notice the wait, because... We were expecting a ride in the minibus at this moment! The favorite pastime of minibus drivers - departure only after the cabin is full - has not been canceled.
Another thing is that for some reason we have historically developed to compare intervals only during rush hours, as if no one drives at other times. And here the situation turns out to be completely different. If even in the late evening, minibus operators tried to maintain intervals of 10-15 minutes, then most of the routes replacing them at this time operate at 30-minute intervals. And this is actually a serious problem.
The issue of coordinating the route schedules of non-state carriers and Mosgortrans has not remained resolved. It’s funny to say, but in a number of cases, when a private owner serves a shortened version of the “long” Mosgortrans route, both buses travel one behind the other ( good example bus T9 and route 379).
The third problem was that compensatory bus routes under government orders did not always completely repeat the routes of minibuses that were canceled earlier. For example, route No. 76k does not enter the territory of the New Marfino microdistrict, as minibus 258m did earlier. There are other examples, for example, in the area near the Dynamo metro station, previously minibuses 4m and 592m followed from Stary Petrovsko-Razumovsky Passage to the metro along the shortest road through Left Palace Alley to Leningradsky Prospekt, followed by a U-turn along the overpass at the interchange with the Third Transport Ring. And for some reason, the new social routes 592 and 22k instead follow a one-way ring through Petrovsko-Razumovskaya Alley and Novaya Bashilovka. Not only is this route initially longer (and therefore slower), but it is also more congested! And who will like it?
Traffic diagram for buses No. 595 and No. 595m in the Dynamo metro area.
However, on August 15, another serious problem escalated much more sharply - the banal non-export of people. It turned out that obvious miscalculations were made in calculating the carrying capacity of the new routes. Firstly, a number of “minibus” routes, having become publicly available on single city tickets, became so popular that even without the abolition of commercial doubles they began to travel with full buses (the vast majority of which are of small or medium capacity). There was simply nowhere to put people from the canceled commercial routes. In other cases, Mosgortrans routes were not strengthened enough. All this leads to overcrowded buses, as well as to the fact that in some places minibuses that are already banned in the city still continue to operate, although now it is completely illegal.
On the other hand, it must be admitted that for the most part, the “new model” of ground transport and the integration of private carriers has been quite successful. For passengers using travel cards, the network of ground transport routes has increased significantly, minibus chaos at metro stations has disappeared, and in most areas transport has begun to run much more often. These are big advantages that seem obvious from the point of view of the average passenger.
As for the problems and local deteriorations that users of the “new model” have to face, it should be noted that the situation is completely fixable. Firstly, any contract can be modified by adding an additional agreement to it. Moreover, this work is already underway on a number of routes. Thus, it is possible to modify or change the route layout, traffic intervals and the type of rolling stock operating on the line. True, for some of the routes here, you have to wait for the carrier to finally deliver buses of the size that were provided for in the contract. By the way, special attention is required to remove intervals in the evening and off-peak hours. Now there are really huge problems with this on a number of routes. In the fall, the period of Mosgortrans drivers returning from vacation will begin; it is quite possible that some of its routes can be strengthened, so to speak, on their own. Although, you need to understand that transport reforms similar to this have not been carried out in the city before, so it is quite logical that it cannot go completely perfectly. Most likely, over the coming months we will see more than a dozen additional agreements to already signed contracts with carriers.
For those who want to immerse themselves in all the details and features of the transition period of the “new model,” we recommend a series of publications from our colleagues on the TR.ru website.
Well, for now we offer to help the Department of Transport find the most problematic points in the city and places where the “new model” has failed. Write in the comments, it is advisable to refrain from emotions and identify the problem as clearly as possible.
