Taken from the Sofia Echo

In a bid to reduce the number of freeloaders, Sofia's suburban buses will launch a new system like the one operating in England, whereby passengers board only via the front door, and alight from the others.

The experiment comes into effect on November 2 2010.

The first buses to introduce the new system will be lines 69, 70 and 123, travelling to Zheleznitsa, Plana and the Simeonovo lift, respectively, the private Bulgarian television channel bTV reported on November 2 2010.

Those lines are operated under concession by Karat.

"
When passengers board the vehicle only through the front door, they cannot do so without showing us a ticket or a card – which is our aim – to stop the freeloaders,"
a Sofia public transport company spokesperson was quoted as saying by bTV.

"
It is early to make any assessments, but the feedback we are getting is that so far today 100 per cent of passengers are legitimate,"
Anton Despotov from the centre of urban mobility said.

Before this system was implemented, it was estimated that every one in eight passengers did not have a ticket. For the moment, this system new will introduced only on suburban routes, not urban ones.

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In Russia, the fare dodgers are called "
zaitsi"
(rabbits)

But realistically how much are they going to save ?????

The BG Govt is scrabbling around for EVERY penny it can get ANYWHERE.

I used a public bus in Sofia for the very first time yesterday, whilst looking to buy a car, luckily a neighbours son who lives in Sofia met me off the Union Bus from Svishtov to Sofia and guided me through the process of buying bus tickets Lol we litterally travelled from one side of sofia (Main Bus Station) to the area next to Praktika where all the big car sales yards are, for 2 Lev, now I dont know if Milen bought a return ticket or not as we managed to buy a car, but I had 2 tickets but I wasn't aware that when you get on the bus YOU had to go and get the ticket stamped at the machine on the inside of the bus (About 3 seats back from the driver) Maybe if they had conductors like our local bus from Oresh to Svishtov (Which is only a mini bus) they might collect more in fares Lol

Its surprised me seeing a minibus with a conductor yet a ruddy big bendy bus relied on passenger honesty Lol, I wasn't even aware that you purchased the ticket BEFORE waiting for the bus, we live and learn Lol

when we got a bus in Sofia , back in 1991 , we were not aware that you had to clip your ticket on board either (it was hard enough work just finding out where one bought ones ticket from )...needless to say , we got fined.....

Do you remember what the fine was? varnagirl

bigsavak wrote:

Do you remember what the fine was? varnagirl

think it was something like double the fare...each