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| Home > News & events > 2006 feature stories > Getting Georgian buses back on the road | |||||||||||
Getting Georgian buses back on the road |
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What a difference a bus makes. Tbilisi residents, who have spent years making do with not quite enough public transport, have got used to weaving through the red-roofed city's elegant streets, under wrought-iron balconies and trailing vines, aboard the thousands of under-regulated private minibuses known as "marshrutkas" that throng the streets instead. But now, thanks to an EBRD deal, buses have reached the parts of Tbilisi that have not seen public transport since the beginning of the 1990s. Georgia's transport networks were hamstrung by the conflicts and under-investment that followed independence in 1991. The Tbilisi Bus Company had 1,200 buses at that time for the city's 1.4 million people. But by 2004 the fleet was down to 80 buses, with only half working on an average day. Currently a mix of private and public companies provide the 400 million public transportation journeys made annually in Tbilisi. The Tbilisi Bus Company carries 12 per cent. More buses, fewer delays The EBRD has lent €3.1 million to the Tbilisi Bus Company to help Georgia restore basic municipal bus services in its capital and give the residents of Tbilisi access to affordable transport. “The loan helped us purchase 200 new and second-hand buses, which cost a modest €15,000 each, one-tenth of their value when new. That saving has enabled the company to offer good service with affordable fares despite the relatively low incomes of people in Tbilisi,” explains Gia Maisuradze, Director of the Municipal Auto Service. The improvement process began in 2004. With a new President, Mikhail Saakashvili, a new government and a burst of global interest in Georgia's well-being – and restored economic stability – the city decided that improving the quality of public transport was a high priority and realistic goal for Tbilisi. City authorities rebuilding the fleet have now consolidated 36 bus routes. Passengers are no longer waiting for hours for the city’s yellow buses to arrive. Each day, 268 buses transport 240,000 passengers. The company plans to expand the number of routes to 80, allowing buses to carry 18 per cent of Tbilisi's passengers by 2007. It expects to transport about 77 million passengers a year. As the official bus service improves, fewer minibuses will be needed and can be regulated more effectively, thereby improving safety, traffic conditions and service quality. “Since the purchase of buses, the number of minibuses being used fell from 4,500 to 2,000,” says Akaki Jokhadze, the Municipal Transport Service’s Manager. “I prefer to sit in a spacious and clean bus and be able to see the view of our beautiful Tbilisi,” says one passenger while stepping inside bus 87 driving alongside the Kura River that embraces the capital. Explains Mr Jokhadze: “We are in the process of licensing minibuses and at the end of 2007, routes for buses and minibuses will be clearly divided. The EBRD helped us to organise the tendering of minibus routes to the private sector.” The advisory service for this tender was paid by a special fund donors created with the EBRD in 2004, the Early Transition Countries (ETC) fund, to address poverty in Georgia and six other member-countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Dutch government, a donor of the ETC fund, provided funds needed for the Tbilisi Bus Company to improve its information management system and its procurement procedures. “The deal marks the first time an international finance organisation has financed the purchase of second-hand buses,” says Thomas Maier, the EBRD's Director for Municipal and Environmental Infrastructure. It is also the first non-sovereign loan made to a municipal utility in the Bank's seven lowest-income countries of operation, the ETCs. “We believed Tbilisi’s budget was strong enough to guarantee the loan,” adds Mr Maier. Jobs in transport The deal makes bankers and city officials alike happy. It will also be a boon for weary shoppers returning from Tbilisi's bustling food market next to the railway station – with their bags loaded with cheese, red beans, khmeli-suneli spices, local wine, delicious chuchkhela sweets made of strings of walnuts in grape resin, red basil, coriander, pomegranates, and khachapuri, Georgia's mouth-watering version of the pizza – and more than ready to sink into the comfortable seats of a new city bus. This summer, they will be greeted by 600 young students who have been employed as bus conductors in the transport system. “Since the 200 buses were bought, more drivers and technicians were employed. This summer the municipal transport team decided to extend the opportunity to work in the transport system to the many students who have to pay their university fees,” says Mr Jokhadze.
By Vanora Bennett; Contribution by Marjola Xhunga
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