Since the beginning of July, ticket inspectors in Krakow have issued only 1,400 fines to free riders in public transport. Previously, this number was as high as nine thousand a month. Such a large decrease in the number of fines issued is the result of breaking the contract with the city by the Rewizor company, which has been dealing with ticket control so far. As a result, officials began to hire their own controllers. However, these are still missing.
Since July, fewer fines have been imposed on free riders on Krakow trams and buses than in previous months. This is the result of the lack of controllers after the Rewizor company terminated the contract with the city for checking tickets at the end of June.
The city intends to claim a total of PLN 7 million from the company in court. Three million of that amount is a claim for the company’s failure to fulfill an ongoing contract. For breaking it, the city wants another four million.
Meanwhile, the Inspector also has financial claims against the city. The company wants PLN 2.7 million from the Public Transport Authority (ZTP) due to lost revenues. – We were unable to issue the appropriate number of summons, because instead of carrying out inspections, our employees had to leave the regions to replace the batteries in the equipment – said the company’s spokesman Piotr Wieczorek in June, accusing ZTP of not providing the inspectors with appropriate devices for checking tickets.
Less ticket control in Krakow
The Rewizor company has been inspecting tickets in Krakow since March 2022. Suddenly, on June 30, 2023, she broke the contract with the city. Earlier in June, the city announced that it would also conduct ticket inspections and began recruiting its own inspectors.
Due to the termination of the contract by the Inspector, from the beginning of July inspections in trams and buses are carried out only by ZTP. There are currently 44 controllers working. The city assumes that it will eventually employ 100. Recruitment is ongoing.
Since the beginning of the month, the inspectors have imposed almost 1,400 fines for free riders for the lack of a valid ticket. They have carried out over 10,000 inspections. When the Inspector checked the validity of tickets, 9-10 thousand fines were imposed monthly. The inspector had to carry out at least 27,000 inspections per month.
Sebastian Kowal, spokesman for the ZTP, when asked if the city recorded lower revenues from fines for free riders, replied: – We will do everything to ensure that the number of checks is the same as before.
The ZTP representative stressed that this is only the beginning of the inspections carried out by the management board. He also presented data from ticket sales via the web application from June 1 to June 15 and from July 1 to July 15. As he said, the difference in profits is small. From 1 to 15 June, almost 1.1 million tickets were sold for almost PLN 3.78 million. At the same time in July, almost 978,000 tickets were sold for almost PLN 3.74 million.
The city estimates that in 2023 it will generate a profit of PLN 380 million from the sale of MPK tickets.
According to the National Debt Register of the Economic Information Bureau The debt of Poles for riding public transport without a valid ticket is almost PLN 500 million. Only in March 2022, Krakow was waiting for PLN 41 million in unpaid fines for free riding.
Indebted free ridersTVN24
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