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In recent months, due to the circumstances caused by the pandemic, transport operators have considerably reduced their offer, the Guimarães City Council has sought to limit the effect of this situation by imposing minimum services. In the House session on Monday 10, the proposals for the imposition of new minimums for the provision of public service to land transport operators by road will be debated.
In 2020, according to information from Câmaral de Guimarães, since April and due to the pandemic, the set of minimum charges for service had a cost that exceeded 2.3 million euros.
During the months of April, May and June, with a very limited offer and given the impossibility of validating the titles, the Municipality “replaces the economic burden of public transport users, assuming the total cost of the public transport service offer Municipal road ”.
Despite this effort by the Chamber, the PCP affirms that the problem persists. The communists complain that services have not been restored to 100% and that even on the lines they were on, as a result of limiting capacity to 2/3, buses are still insufficient.
The proposal that goes to the Chamber session on Monday 10, contemplates the maintenance of the offer of the public passenger transport service implemented for the months of November and December, with occasional changes, in accordance with the “limitations identified by the Board Directive. Parish ”and“ user complaints ”. The proposal also speaks of the “increase in the public passenger transport service necessary to comply with the provisions of the DGS,” in response to the demands of the PCP.
This imposition of minimum services for the month of January will cost the City Council around 160 thousand euros: 2,500 euros for Rodoviária D’Entre Douro e Minho, 82,500 euros for Transdeve Norte and 112,231.80 euros for Arriva.
TUG’s concession to Arriva ends in March
The new act of imposing minimum services takes place at a time when the end of the current urban public transport concession is in sight. Arriva’s concession to operate the Guimarães Urban Public Transport (TUG) ceases in March. The company has a contractual obligation to maintain the service until July 31.
It is recalled that Arriva did not advance to the international public tender for the concession of TUGs, in the opinion of Monteiro de Castro, councilor of the CDS, since the unit remuneration per vehicle per commercial kilometer is not compensatory (0.78 euros). Even so, the winning proposal, from the company Vale do Ave Transportes, Lda, presented a value well below the established minimum (0.42 euros). Given that the award criterion was “the most economically advantageous offer, in the price modality”, Vale do Ave Transportes was chosen to operate the TUGs for the next ten years, a contract worth 15,105,766.94 euros.
According to the draft contract approved at the Chamber meeting, on September 7, 2020, the exploration period should start on January 1, 2021 and should have been preceded by an experimental period that would begin as soon as the contract started. . take effect.
However, the contract provides that these dates will be modified depending on when the concession contract begins to come into force. If the contract became effective after October 1, 2020, the concessionaire has the contractual right to postpone the start of exploration until March 1, 2021. If the concession contract only began to be effective after October 1, January 2021 December, then the exploration period, as established, must begin on August 1. This should be the solution to adopt, since Arriva has no obligation to maintain the service.
Arriva layoffs on the horizon
MINHO is aware that Arriva has already provisioned a significant amount for layoffs due to the termination of the concession contract.
The possibility that the concession contract only enters into force after April 1, 2021, in which case the exploration period would have to start four to nine months later, that is, between July and December 2021, is also contractually envisaged. .
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