7 years after the promise of the electronic ticket, the "E-Transport" project paid for, but not finalized

2024-08-22 18:00:00, Aktualitet Afize Nelaj

7 years after the promise of the electronic ticket, the "E-Transport"

Illustrative photo

Seven years after the promise of electronic tickets, even though millions of lek have been spent on platforms and decisions, intercity bus lines still operate in an uncoordinated manner. Travelers, but especially foreign tourists, spend endless hours buying tickets and waiting at stations, instead of having access to the digital platform.

The institutions pass on the responsibility of the failure of this service to each other.

"It is the first time I come to Albania for vacation. Every few meters I have to ask passers-by to take an urban or a bus that leads to a city.

I had to wait several hours with the bus that came now from Gjirokastra. At first they told me I couldn't board because there were no free seats, so I waited for the next one,” says Gabriel, a tourist from France.

7 years after the promise of the electronic ticket, the "E-Transport"

We are located at the "North-South" bus terminal, where in the meeting with Gabriel, he explains to us that tourists encounter difficulties when it comes to orientation to find means of transport within the city and outside as well.

"I have also visited other European countries, but orientation is simpler because you can find everything online. We can get the tickets online and there we can see the place and time of travel." - concluded the French tourist.

As we continue our visit to this terminal, we meet another couple, this time from Germany. Romain and Pauline have just returned from Saranda.

7 years after the promise of the electronic ticket, the "E-Transport"

"In a few hours we will leave your country. With the bus we just arrived, we were forced to book a ticket at a travel agency.

We did this because we were afraid of missing the plane. Two years ago we had such a problem.

It would be simpler if online ticketing would work here as in Germany," says Pauline.

For tourists, but also for Albanian citizens, our government was expected from 2017 to create a new standard in travel, which would help them. That of electronic tickets. The electronic ticket service appears on the official website of the General Directorate of Road Transport.

This category is called E-Transport.

For the implementation of this platform, 198.74 million ALL (without VAT) have been spent so far. From the research at the Public Procurement Authority, it appears that since July 2020, the National Information Society Authority has opened a tendering procedure for the implementation of the E-Transport platform, in DPSHTRR.

7 years after the promise of the electronic ticket, the "E-Transport"

FOR INFORMATION/DETAILED TENDER):

Implementation of the E-transport platform for DPSHTRR

Open Date/year 2020/no 21373/

Ref-65898-07-20-2020

Authority: National Agency of the Information Society

Limit Fund- 198,748,233

Winner: Communication Progress.

But has this project been implemented? A visit to the official website of the DPSHTRR proves to us that the only thing offered on the E-Transport platform is the selection of a destination, from Tirana to another city, where only the line, the means of transport and the schedule are reflected.

7 years after the promise of the electronic ticket, the "E-Transport"

The regulatory act which defines the procedure of this service is the Decision of the Council of Ministers No. 85, approved on February 8, 2017.

In the third point of its first chapter, it is provided that in any case the electronic ticket must contain the following elements:

Photo from the E-Transport platform

Point 3 of VKM no. 85, dated 08.02.2017

a) the length of the trip in km; b) the price per km; c) serial number; ç) the name of the transport operator; d) date and time of departure; dh) the part of the ticket (evidence/label) for the passenger's luggage; e) data on the fiscal invoice; e) the electronic seal.

However, among these 8 points, only 3 of them are defined in the system, the operator, the time/date of departure and the length of the journey in km.

So, in short, the process of fiscalization and electronic management is also out of order for this summer season.

Before the arrival of this summer season, the Minister of Infrastructure and Energy, Belinda Balluku, said in January that with the increase in the flow of tourists, this ticket will be implemented to avoid cases of overloading of intercity lines or price abuse.

"This significant number of visitors requires not only road infrastructure, but also a modern public transport to meet the demand.

We have decided to proceed with the creation of an agency regarding public transport, an agency which will undoubtedly provide a unified service throughout the country, will provide an electronic ticket for everyone to avoid any fiscal evasion, but on the other hand other and any abuse of travelers" Balluku declared in a press release.

7 years after the promise of the electronic ticket, the "E-Transport"

Today, despite this statement, citizens still cannot have full access to this service. The representative of the Transport Society, Dashnor Memaj, says that if the state will reach the levels of the European Union member states, citizens and tourists should have already benefited from this service.

"The benefit for citizens, but also for tourists, is that they will no longer need to wait in line or call drivers on the phone for tickets or to take a seat.

For tourists online information is the most important thing that should be provided. If the state will work like other EU countries, with the electronic ticket, today tourists would be able to avoid abuses or the fear of paying higher than the real value, while the institutions would be influenced for subsidies according to the economic needs of the citizens." - explains Memaj.

According to him, this delay occurred due to non-coordination between the respective institutions.

For this, we requested information from the authorities in charge of the progress of the project, specifically from the Ministry of Infrastructure, DPSHTRR, the National Transport Agency and the winner of the tender, the "Communication Progress" software company.

In the return-response of DPSHTRR, with protocol no. 13030/1, we are told as follows: "The E-Transport platform goes through two phases. The first phase, fully functional, provided for the creation of modules for the provision of the service by DPSHTRR.

7 years after the promise of the electronic ticket, the "E-Transport"

As for the second phase, the implementation of electronic ticketing, work has begun to realize this project.

The project will be ready as soon as the equipment installation and configuration process is completed, which is led by the National Agency of the Society of

Information.”

After that, we asked the winning company of the "Communication Progress" tender when the implementation process for this service will be finalized.

The answer we got was this:

"In the capacity of the Contractor, on 24.09.2020 Communication Progress has signed with the Contracting Authority "National Agency of the Information Society", the contract with the object "Implementation of the electronic e-Transport platform", with the beneficiary of the service "General Directorate of Services of Road Transport", with a deadline of 12 months of implementation and 48 months of maintenance. The contract in question has been fully completed within the deadlines with complete success and is currently in the maintenance phase."

So, according to the company's answer, the repair and installation of the electronic equipment has been completed, and therefore the electronic ticket should have already been put into operation.

For this delay in the applicability of the contract, we could not get an official response from the ANA and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy, to officially know the final deadline for the works and whether a regulatory act has been established.

7 years after the promise of the electronic ticket, the "E-Transport"

This is because these two institutions have not responded to two requests for information addressed to them on July 25, 2024.

Albanian legislation, specifically law 119/2014 "On the right to information" provides that each institution in the transparency program also submits a Register of Requests, where previously provided information is submitted.

From a search on the official website of ANA, on August 9, 2023, it appeared that this authority was addressed with a request for information on the reasons for the postponement of the stated deadlines for providing the electronic ticket service.

In the response of AKSHI, it was written that the service would be put into operation in the following months, without clearly defining when. Their response follows:

"The service is expected to be finalized in the coming months. Currently, we are in the implementation of phase 2 of the e-Transport system, where the repair and installation of electronic equipment will be done. Regardless of the above, this process remains pending the initiation and approval of regulatory acts by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy, as the ministry responsible for the field of transport, so that the service can begin its operation."

In fact, the Ministry of Infrastructure has two acts, Decision of the Council of Ministers no. 85, dated 8.2.2017, also Instruction No. 3743, dated 10.7.2017 on "Models and Standards of Passenger Road Transport Tickets".

In this instruction, in its fifth point, which also includes the electronic format, the entire legal basis for the production, distribution and provision of these tickets to travelers is explained.

At the end of this instruction, it is presented how these tickets should be produced, either for internal or intercity transport.

The regulatory acts are in place and the process for the implementation of tickets has been successfully completed, but at the time we speak, only the paper format exists.

"We are towards the end of the tourist season, every citizen, or even a tourist who has come to our country, should receive in real time the information of the lines and the coordination of his trip to the final destination. We don't have that yet." - said Memaj.

7 years after the promise of the electronic ticket, the "E-Transport"

The lack of transparency from the institutions does not clarify the time when citizens and tourists in Albania will be able to travel according to "European conditions".

This "dead" investment by ANA, which came at a time when the government budget was in great difficulty due to the economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, but also by the earthquake of November 26, 2019, still it has not yet been implemented, even though 4 years have passed.

Some of the ticket models according to the guide

It remains unclear what are the reasons why this project has not been finalized. Thus, until its completion, Albanian taxpayers will continue to pay for the maintenance of the platform./ CNA