40% of buses are removed from circulation/ Association representatives warn: There will be escalation

2026-04-15 09:56:00, Aktualitet CNA

40% of buses are removed from circulation/ Association representatives warn:

A serious situation is developing in the capital's public transport, where a significant part of the urban buses have not been put into circulation today. Operators have decided to reduce service by about 40%, arguing that increased costs, especially for fuel, have become unaffordable.

This development comes after a period of tensions between transport companies and state institutions. According to sector representatives, efforts to find a solution through dialogue have not yielded results, while the lack of response from the authorities has forced this measure.

The consequences have been immediate for citizens. On many routes, buses are less frequent and more overcrowded, significantly increasing waiting times and worsening travel conditions. The increased flow of passengers is expected to bring even more problems in the coming days.

Operators warn that this is only the first phase of a possible escalation. If concrete measures are not taken, such as direct subsidies or other financial incentives, service could be reduced even further.

Meanwhile, the citizens of Tirana face a new reality, where daily movement has become more difficult and unsafe, raising serious concerns for the normal functioning of urban life in the capital.

"We were promised that we would have a very strong reaction, on the 7th we were promised that we would meet with the ministers and today is the 15th, not only that this meeting did not take place, but we have not had any reaction.

Having exhausted every opportunity for operators to cooperate with institutions, we came to this point where we were forced to notify citizens, as is known, the notification was for citizens, to take measures to get to work and their destination, leaving earlier, because there will be 40% fewer buses on the road.

Practically half of the lines did not operate today. If a line operates with 10 buses per day, we currently have six buses in operation, which means the frequency has increased by half the time.

We are saying that the flow of people is twice as large. There is no service, today even these buses that are there will have endless defects, with broken doors, with broken windows, they will violate the vehicle, citizens will be very embarrassed with each other. It will be a catastrophic service, I'm saying.

This is an extreme institutional negligence, because meeting, promising, measures will be taken, we will meet again next week, we will have concrete measures, because they were aware that oil has gone up to these prices, we have an increase of somewhere around 70 lek in the price of oil from before the war, exchange rates have also increased due to transportation, imports that are coming.

We have a total increase in costs. We sent some points that we hoped would have an intervention, but the most urgent one was a direct subsidy, as was also done, let's say in the Ukraine war. We were promised that we would have a meeting, we had total silence.

We have been trying constantly with our communication mechanisms, as well as with people in institutions, do we have any hope, any green light, is anyone dealing with this work? There is total silence and we are forced to do so at this point.

"This is just the beginning of what awaits us in the future, because there will be an even greater escalation," said the head of the urban and intercity transport association./ CNA