In recent months, due to the circumstances caused by the pandemic, transport operators have greatly reduced their offer, the City of Guimarães has sought to limit the effect of this situation by imposing minimum services. At the Chamber meeting on Monday, the 10th, proposals for the imposition of new minimums for the provision of public service to the land road transport operators of the municipality will be discussed.
In 2020, according to information from Câmaral de Guimarães, since April and due to the pandemic, the set of minimum service charges, 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 financial burden of public transport users, assuming the full cost of the public transport service offer Municipal road ”.
Despite this effort by the Chamber, the PCP states that the problem persists. Communists complain that services have not been restored to 100% and that even on the lines they were on, as a result of limiting the capacity to 2/3, buses continue to be insufficient.
The proposal that goes to the Chamber meeting on Monday, the 10th, calls for the maintenance of the public passenger transport service offer implemented for the months of November and December, with occasional changes, in accordance with “constraints identified by the Board of Directors 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”, meeting the demands of the PCP.
This imposition of minimum services for the month of January will cost the Municipality 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 to impose minimum services takes place at a time when the end of the current concession of urban public transport is on the horizon. In March, Arriva’s concession to operate Guimarães Urban Public Transport (TUG) ceases. The company is contractually obliged 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, as the unit remuneration per vehicle per commercial kilometer is not compensating (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). Since the award criterion was “the most economically advantageous offer, in the price modality”, Vale do Ave Transportes was chosen to operate the TUGs over 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 begin on January 1, 2021 and should have been preceded by an experimental period that would begin as soon as the contract began take effect.
The contract provides, however, for these dates to be changed depending on when the concession contract begins to take effect. If the contract started to take effect 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 started to take effect after January 1, 2021 December, then the exploration period, as established, must begin on August 1st. This must be the solution to be adopted, since Arriva is under no obligation to maintain the service.
Arriva redundancies on the horizon
MINHO is aware that Arriva has already provisioned a significant amount to make redundancies due to the end of the concession contract.
It is also contractually provided for the possibility that the concession contract will only take effect 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.
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