There are 500 buses in the garages, people are waiting for hours

In recent days, especially since September 15, the traffic in Baku has become paralyzed again. Citizens flocking to the capital after the summer months wait at the parking lots for 30-40 minutes before the traffic jam where they will stay for hours. Passengers during peak hours route although they expected that the interval of their buses would decrease, the opposite happened.

Passengers about it in social networks along with writing, our website also received a lot of requests. Citizens report that despite the fact that 1 week has passed since the beginning of the academic year, the number of buses is decreasing day by day instead of increasing.

It is interesting to note that this reduction is in the operation of “Bakubus MMC”, which has the highest passenger density in the state’s balance sheet route shows itself in the lines. Passengers used “Bakubus” buses 10– If you had to wait 15 minutes, now the interval on some lines exceeds half an hour. These include the most used routes such as 1, 13, at the same time Baku buses that have to carry passengers from villages to the city can be mentioned. So, passengers are waiting for the mentioned buses in long queues. The main issue starts after the bus arrives. The fight over getting on the route, which started early in the morning, resulted in the dissatisfaction of the residents and the driver leaving the station. Who’s riding through the back doors? hand– who are the ones who stay between the doors that don’t close…

Citizens complaint They say that they could not get a coherent answer from the 141 short number they called for. It opens with the slogan “Takes you to the future”, but it doesn’t work bakubus.az and it is not possible to enter the site at all.

Usually, the relevant agencies connect the situation on the roads to this level with the increase of passenger cars, recommending people to prefer public transport. But the reason for the increase in the number of cars in the city is also the improper organization of bus operations, those who have difficulty getting on the route, those who cannot get to work or apartment by bus on time and safely, are forced to buy a car…

The drivers themselves are tired of this situation. For example, M8, which moves from Mashtaga settlement to the city center and back route the driver of the line says that until the last days in this direction 10 if the bus was working, now this number has been reduced to 8-9. He says that the number of buses on the routes operated by “Bakubus” is being reduced every day, and the interval is being increased.

But at a time when the number of routes should be increased, what is the purpose of “Bakubus” in reducing the number of buses and making citizens dissatisfied?

During our short investigation, it became clear that every day about 500 buses are kept in the garages located in “Koroglu”, Zıgh and Buzovna belonging to “Bakubus”. Thus, it is possible to visually observe the parking of more than 300 buses in the garage in Zigh during the day. 120-130 new and modern buses are “sleeping” in the garage of “Bakubus” located in Buzovna settlement. The drivers we talked to say that most of the buses parked in Buzovna have not been driven in Baku at all, and why they are rotting in the garage is a mystery. In the most modern garage of “Bakubus” in Koroglu, it is possible to see that 50 buses remain unused during the day.

However, hundreds of thousands of people in Baku are waiting for public transport every day, and due to poor management in this area, they are stressed and lose time, and in general, the daily worsening of transport conditions leads to a decrease in the quality of life of people, weather and causes an increase in noise pollution.

This year April This is also confirmed by the results of the audits conducted by the Accounting Chamber at “BakuBus” LLC. According to the report, 198 out of 303 “Iveco” brand passenger buses in the balance of the company have been stopped. The reason is that the buses are not repaired. That is, “Bakubus” instead of carrying out ordinary and current repairs, dismantled various usable spare parts from 80 of 198 buses and installed them on others.

During the external state financial control measure on financial activity in the period from 01.01.2019 to 01.01.2021, the Accounting Chamber also revealed some points. It became clear that 25 percent of the buses bought at the expense of 80 million manat state funds were not put on the line at all. So, the company kept the buses that were not put on the line as spare parts.

The main garage of “Bakubus” in Zigh settlement

Buzovna garage where new buses of “Bakubus” are kept

“Koroglu” garage, where “Bakubus” buses are kept

On the issue Baku We sent a request to the Transport Agency. Mais Agayev, press secretary of the institution, answered the appeal as follows: “Currently, there is traffic congestion on the roads, which affects the movement of buses. Usually delays of the day if it was during peak hours, right now of the day We also observe delays in routes during off-peak hours. Delays are even more than 15 minutes. The only solution for both traffic congestion, traffic jams and the efficiency of public transport way based on the principles of the city model, it is a step-by-step implementation of the measures derived from these principles. In this context, the first thing that needs to be done for our city is to expand the scope of bus lanes, make bus lanes into a network, and drivers of other transport vehicles must strictly comply with the bus lane requirement. Only in this case we can achieve efficiency in the operation of public transport”.

M. Agayev thinks that if public transport is stabilized, it will increase its attractiveness: “Increasing the attractiveness of public transport will gradually encourage the city population to use buses for their intra-city trips. They will travel by car if absolutely necessary. If people give up cars and turn to buses, it will solve the traffic jam problem. Therefore, no matter how complex all these problems are, the solution is actually very simple. The problem can be solved by organizing single bus lanes and making them into a network. Currently, BNA is doing serious work in this direction. But in the current situation, releasing additional buses to the line is not a solution to the problem.” (Caucasian)