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By Andria Kades
Although attempts by the transport ministry to encourage public transport have been partially successful, efforts in Limassol are being hampered by virtually non-existent facilities.
Bus stations scattered across the city give no indication of what time the next bus will arrive nor is there a printed schedule of the routes at the majority of stops.
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Bus stop at My Mall – the only one on the Bus 30 route that has a printed schedule
Many lack even basic shade and are marked by a simple pole with a yellow sign indicating some of the buses which make a stop there.
At the citizen’s service centre in the old town, for instance, the sign does not indicate that intercity buses travelling to Nicosia and Larnaca stop to pick up passengers there.
One of the pick-up points for the bus heading to Paphos has no bus stop at all, merely a group of people standing around.
Despite the public’s intention to use public transport, “it quickly turns into Odyssey every time they approach ‘ghost’ bus stops,” said Limassol municipal councillor Aristos Aristidou in a letter of complaint sent to the mayor on April 26.
“Most bus stops both in and out of the city are ruined, rusty or even non-existent.”
Aristidou went on to say that too often, streets lacked specific places for buses to stop causing traffic and impatient drivers to try and overtake the bus, which are key factors that can lead to road accidents.
Asked by the Sunday Mail what response he received, Aristidou said Limassol mayor Nicos Nicolaides has had meetings with the local bus company Emel and are in the midst of discussions on how to improve facilities.
“There was a company whose responsibility it was to maintain bus stations. Their contract ended sometime at the end of last year or the beginning of this year,” he said.
“Now we have the opportunity to prepare a tender with conditions that we want. There can be ads at the bus stations which can be a source of revenue and there can be internet.”
Urgent improvements are needed he said.
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Bus stop on the sea front has no sign explaining which buses stop there
“We can’t be building tall buildings and marinas while ignoring the people.”
In May last year, a deal was signed between the transport ministry and Spanish company GMV Sistemas SA which would implement smart ticketing as well as fleet management and passenger information islandwide.
According to ministry engineer Aristotelis Savva, who is responsible for the telematics project, the way tickets are issued and validated will change and will involve the use of a contactless card – similar to London’s Oyster card.
The cards will be available for purchase at key points across every city such as bus stations, and passengers will still be able to make monthly or weekly ticket purchases for their cards or top up their card balance.
The option to purchase a single ticket directly from the bus driver will still be available.
Once the system is implemented, people waiting at a bus stop could use their phone for information on bus arrival times.
Passengers not too adept with technology such as the elderly will still be able to use the bus company telephone service as is currently practised.
The first steps to implementing this include “system installation in all buses, recording and naming of all stops across the country, setting up the points of sales and the control centres for the public transport operators and training of several hundreds of people involved,” Savvas said.
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Alexander Tkatchev (left) and Igor Tikhontsev
“The installations will start in July 2017, but due to the large number of buses involved the system will be visible to customers in late autumn 2017.”
Once installations begin, buses will have automatic announcements about upcoming stops.
The need for improvements are evident in Limassol.
“I took a bus once to Mesa Gitonia. I had to wait two hours for it and so never used one again,” said Limassol local, Andreas Zenonos.
Services catering for tourists, however, tend to be quite good once you know where the stops are.
Russian tourists Alexander Tkatchev and Igor Tikhontsev waiting at the citizen’s service bus station told the Sunday Mail that transport for the main seafront was very easy with bus 30.
“It passes every 15 minutes,” Tikhontsev said, but added that they had to rely on their phones and Google maps to guide them when to get off.
Drivers doing the bus 30 route have a microphone where they announce major stops such as Debenhams and the old town, marina.
“When it comes to parts of the city though, there isn’t a lot of access,” Tkatchev said.
Emel’s operations manager Christakis Argyrou, told the Sunday Mail that their most popular route is with bus 30 which goes from My Mall to Parklane Hotel across the coast and back with buses every 15 minutes.
Largely popular with tourists it is also used by locals, as are buses 16, 17 and 18 which go to Ipsonas, Kolossi and Episkopi.
“We take on board a lot of comments or complaints we receive and we do our best to adjust. We can’t do anything on our own though, we need government approval.”
In the summer for instance, bus 18 which normally stops at Agios Ermogenis church now goes until the beach.
“We also have small buses just for the town centre that go from the old hospital to Ayios Antonis, the citizen’s service, Ayiou Andreou, the district office, Saripolou and Anexartisias. Buses to villages and mountains are also quite popular such as Troodos and Omodos.”
Although they too look forward to the GPS system that will be installed eventually, Argyrou said tourists don’t find it too difficult as hotels give out information and help can easily be found.
Israeli tourist Yair, who did not want to share his last name, said he had found reaching Limassol from Larnaca airport easy and the times for bus route were excellent and “very useful”.
Buses to Agros and Troodos were not on the other hand very useful he said, because of the timing.
“The bus to Troodos leaves at 9am and gets back at 3pm so you don’t get enough time in Troodos if you go for one day,” he said. “Generally, I found it pretty problematic to find timetables and directions on the website.”
According to acting director general of the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) Marinos Menelaou, they had “not received any public transport-related specific complaints”.
“Despite ample opportunity for improvement on the ‘tourist friendliness’, availability of information etc, by and large the level of public transport provision has improved significantly in recent years,” he said.
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