The hierarch specified that as a result of the pandemic the Metropolitan Transport System (STM) “lost 220 million tickets” in three years, which translates (in “gross numbers”) into $220 million. This amount “evaporates from the box of the transportation system,” he said.
The increase that the IM set is $3 for the ticket with the use of the STM card (happens to cost $42), $4 for payment in cash (happens to cost $52) and, in the case of the tariff, it will cost $24 for half an hour and $48 for the whole hour. In the case of the ticket, the measure will come into force as of this Thursday, January 5, while the price will be as of Monday the 16th.
As the second reason behind the ticket increase, Inthamoussu pointed to the go up in prices: “The entire transport system is in an economy where prices change. As the year goes by, prices increase. There is an issue in the economy that is inflation that we do not control, and prices have to be updated from time to time“, he asserted at a press conference.
In any case, he acknowledged that the diesel subsidy allows “stability and predictability” in the system.
When asked if the price increase would not imply a greater reduction in ticket sales, Inthamoussu replied that “this variable is always there” and maintained that the price of the ticket “is an important variable to try to continue recovering the demand”. However, the administration cannot “sustain the costs of the system with resources that do not exist,” he stated.
“We have had to support the system because we have had to guarantee the service. During these three years there has been external assistance from the national government and the mayor’s office, in addition the workers gave up their wages and the companies their income. Those four components, it is time to start putting them back together,” said the director of Transportation of the IM.
In turn, it also justified the change in the price of paid parking in neighborhoods Center, Cordon and Old City.
“It has been three years since I went up and, in this case, we reflect one of the three years” with the increase, he argued. “We are increasing the fee by a percentage equivalent to one year’s CPI,” she added.
