Hikes in Transport/Bus Fares Cancelled

Metro in Athens  (credit: Wikipedia)

The government decided to place an initiative to hike public transport fares in March on the back burner, due to the economic crisis. The Ministry of Development has been trying to boost revenues for the transport system by clamping down on fare-dodging, which cost the Athens public transport system OASA an estimated 37.5 million Euros a year in lost revenues. 

It was also announced that after the Epiphany holiday on January 6, passengers will be able to buy special discounted packets of 11 tickets for the price of 10 and these will have different colours so that they cannot be resold individually. Over the coming weeks, OASA will also introduce a multiple ticket for more categories of fares in a bid to reward conscientious passengers that pay their travel fares in full and give added incentives against fare-dodging.

Concerning future extensions to the system, the metro extension to Anthoupolis in western Athens will be completed in April, that to Elliniko to the southeast in July and the new station in Haidari (western Athens) the following September. The line 3 extension from Haidari (Agia Marina) - Piraeus is expected to be completed in 2017. Also it was announced that a contract for an extension of the tram line toward Piraeus will be signed next week while the Thessaloniki metro is currently struggling to overcome the contractor's liquidity issues.