TIRANA'S URBAN PLACES, SCANDALOUS CONDITIONS

Ditët e fundit pronarët e shërbimit urban gjithëkombëtar kanë lajmëruar reduktimin nga 40-60% të flotës së autobuzëve, duke e thelluar kaosin e përditshëm. Arsyeja: Çmimi i lartë i karburantit për të cilin kërkojnë kompensim. Një kërkesë e drejtë kjo që, më së pari, detyron plotësimin prej tyre të kushteve skandaloze të udhëtimit me autobuzët urban tejet të amortizuar e që, ndonëse nuk plotësojnë kushtet kryesore të përcaktuara nga ligji, janë të licensuar

2026-04-20 20:37:00, Denoncim Xhovan Shyti

To travel on Tirana's urban buses, you must be prepared to face a series of sacrifices. Some stem from the buses' depreciation beyond the allowed technical limit, others from the rudeness and misbehavior of the service personnel, and failure to respect the schedule.

With the exception of the urban lines "Tirana e re", "Unaza", "Porcelani", "Kombinat-Konistudio" and some others, all the others serve according to the principle "I am the schedule, not the passenger who pays for the service".

Because in addition to the 40 lek ticket fee, citizens also pay for the monthly compensation that the Municipality distributes to urban property ownership companies.

The Municipality's monthly compensation fund comes from the municipal budget, which is filled with taxes from citizens living in Tirana. So citizens pay twice for urban transport. They pay the 40 lek ticket price during the trip, and they also pay the municipal compensation that goes to the owners of the lines.

Halal, but these payments must be justified by the provision of a correct service, according to the standards and obligations arising from the contract of the owners with the Municipality. Which does not match anywhere with the reality offered by the daily life of urban travel in the capital. Because, we repeat emphatically: to travel with the urban buses of Tirana you will have to have the nerves to endure the wait at the station, the coffee stops of the drivers and the waiters, the noise of the engines that groan unbelievably due to their age.

Due to non-compliance with the schedules set by the companies themselves, buses are overcrowded with passengers who have to endure the heavy air from keeping the air conditioners closed, which even where they are working are not opened by the drivers.

Or even where they are opened, from maximum consumption instead of air conditioning, they produce irritating noise for a psyche burdened by the mountain of daily worries.

TIRANA'S URBAN PLACES, SCANDALOUS CONDITIONS

Due to technical limitations, suburban urban buses do not offer air conditioning at all. They have declared air conditioners as "superfluous" devices. Open windows replace this mandatory condition to obtain a license from the responsible official institutions.

Not a few "poor" urban buses on suburban lines have their roofs leaky during the rainy season, but the most sublime sacrifice in this urban mess must be made by passengers on "modern" buses, with windowless windows, where the air is heavily polluted.

Due to the scandalous air conditioning conditions, in many cases there have been passengers who have lost consciousness... In fact, the scandalous conditions offered by the capital's urban buses are not a recent discovery.

Such rules have been in place for years, even though legally, their failure to comply forces state institutions to deny licenses to conduct business.

Something that has not happened in any case and is the real cause that explains the decades-long legacy of urban misservice, where the suffering victims are passengers who pay for the undeserved licensing of urban bus fleets outside the technical standards required by law.

But they also pay for the monthly compensation allowances of urban companies and the monthly salaries received by responsible municipal officials, who stand and watch the urban mess.

They say that the sad urban reality will be present as long as the channel of sharing money under the table, between owners and officials, is not stopped. They say…/ CNA