The market for urban and intercity buses is liberalized, the bill is in public consultation

By Fotis Fotinos

The bus market is being liberalized, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport put the relevant bill in public consultation until September 9.

In particular, it is about the “Public long-distance and urban regular road passenger transport” bill, which provides for the holding of tenders for the assignment of urban and long-distance KTEL routes.

As argued by the Ministry of Transport, this draft law promotes the replacement of provisions, with a new unified institutional framework adapted to the provisions of European Regulation 1370/2007.
For regular road urban and long-distance passenger transport, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport will be the competent body for carrying out tender procedures by geographical area and awarding contracts, while monitoring the execution of contracts will be the responsibility of the “Competent Local Authorities”, specifically the Regions of the country in their area of ​​responsibility.

How will the competitions be conducted?

Tenders for the assignment of public regular long-distance and urban passenger road transport are announced as follows:

a. For regional units in which the provision of regular long-distance and urban services is carried out by one transport operator, a single tender is announced for all regular long-distance, intra-regional and inter-regional services, and, if they exist, also urban services, and a contractor is announced for the whole of the project.

b. For regional units in which the provision of regular long-distance services is carried out by one transport operator and the provision of regular urban services is carried out by another transport operator, two tenders are issued, namely, one for the regular long-distance work and another for the regular urban work.

c. Especially for regular urban road passenger transport, a tender is announced for a geographical area that includes urban areas of several municipalities, neighboring or not, of this or other regional units, if this is deemed appropriate for the provision of high-quality services and at the same time for the viability of the contractor, or if the provision of an independent urban transport project in a certain geographical area is considered unprofitable.

As criteria for determining the geographical area for the provision of an urban transport project, which is the subject of the tender in this case, the estimated kilometers to be carried out, the number of buses required for their execution and the contractor’s gross income, the securing of urban transport services to passengers, the economic viability of businesses and the minimum possible cost of travel.

d. If in the same regional unit the regular long-distance transport project is provided by several transport operators, corresponding tenders for assignment are announced.

e. In regions in which regular long-distance intra-regional and inter-regional road passenger transport is provided by a transport operator for more than one regional unit, a single tender is announced and a contractor is announced, for the entire long-distance transport project.

f. On the islands, the assignment of the project, following an open tender process or a direct award process, is carried out on an individual island basis.

If the contractor violates its contractual obligations and the obligations arising from this, as well as from Regulation (EC) 1370/2007, administrative fines are imposed, as specified in the decision of paragraph 5 of article 30 of this draft law, the amount of which ranges from one thousand (1,000) to ten thousand (10,000) euros.

The administrative fines imposed on the contractors are revenues of the regular budget.