ArmInfo. Yerevan Municipality made a statement in connection with the strike of bus drivers.
"Cameras were installed yesterday in two buses owned by Yerevan Bus CJSC, in order to improve the quality of transportation. This caused dissatisfaction among the company's drivers, some of whom refused to work today. The problem is now being resolved," the Spokesman for the Yerevan Municipality Hakob Karapetyan said.
As ArmInfo has previously written, the capital of Armenia, on the morning of March 7, faced a transport collapse. Bus drivers of urban public transport refuse to work today, protesting against the intentions of the city authorities to install surveillance cameras in vehicles.
About 250 drivers gathered in the fleet of Charbakh and Jrvezh. Since morning, a large number of people are gathered at bas stations, Yerevan residents cannot get to work. The drivers are outraged both by the intention of the capital's municipality to install surveillance cameras in the bus salons to control the financial flows and study the flow itself, as well as by the high rate of daily scheduled payments, which, according to some data, amount to 40 thousand drams per day when a passsenger`s travel fee is 100 AMD. Currently, negotiations with drivers are conducted by the head of the transport department of the Yerevan Mayor`s Office Henrikh Navasardian, and the first Deputy Mayor Hrachya Sargsyan.
To recall, the initiative to install cameras belongs to the WYG consulting company. In 2014, the Yerevan Municipality invited the WYG International Limited to study the city's transport system and develop a project for its modernization. The initial draft of the reform was submitted in September 2017. The new network envisaged reducing approximately half of the number of vehicles . Its implementation, according to preliminary calculations, required about $ 100 million. Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutyan stated earlier that from February the city administration will consider the results of the modernization work carried out on the Armenian transport network and only after monitoring and positive conclusion by the international consulting company WYG International Limited will try for 2-4 years to bring the system to life. "Even if today we are presented with the results of monitoring and modernization of the transport network, we will need six months to implement it, another six months to hold a competition for operators and a year for operators to purchase vehicles and start work. At the same time, we must take into account the interest of operators to our market ", said Marutyan. "This is a program at the national level, and not just the city authorities," added Marutyan.