Slobodna Dalmacija reports on June 2, 2019, that Promet Split ended last year with a loss of 15 million kuna, which unfortunately isn’t news but a long-term trend for the Split public transportation company. Miroslav Delić, who has assumed the duties of Promet’s director since the beginning of February, explained that such a poor financial result was due to a steady decline in revenues, a rise in expenditures and constant liquidity.
As stated, exiting from this situation will be attempted in the financial consolidation of the company, i.e., future business without loss, renewing the fleet, as well as restructuring the company while improving the working conditions and material position of employees. Delić admitted that after taking office and getting acquainted with the company, its state was worse than he thought.
“The first step in financial consolidation was made, and since March and April there has been better communication and mutual understanding, and through talks and negotiations with all co-owners of “Promet”, we managed to sign an agreement on the provision of communal services and compensation for the costs of passenger transport in public transport. Also, we are preparing new revenue-raising measures, such as the introduction of a daily and three-day bus ticket, and we will propose a price of 25 and 75 kuna at the next meeting of the Assembly. We also plan to increase revenues by introducing integrated transport on the Split-Split Airport route, where we will negotiate with HŽ Passenger Transport that, apart from the city’s metro station, from June, “Promet” will transfer passengers from the Airport to Kaštel Stari, from where the train passengers will arrive at the ferry port in 35 minutes, which is considerably faster than a bus service on the same route,” reveals Delić.
Regarding renewing the fleet, we know that a contract for the purchase of 34 buses has been signed as part of the project “No regret”, which is 100% financed by the Ministry of Transport and EU funds and their delivery is expected by the end of summer. Delić further states that at the end of April, the procedure for the purchase of an additional 18 buses was concluded through ITU mechanisms, which is currently in the process of reviewing the documentation and selection of the most successful bidders, so the signing of that contract is soon to be expected.
“It is important to note that in the last month in the Ministry, we conducted a series of talks on procuring more buses through EU funds in order to continue with upgrading the fleet. Everything has been prepared to launch a tender to purchase a new ticketing system, which has been discussed for years. All the documentation for this project has been submitted to the Ministry, and we hope that the funds will be approved soon to proceed to the procurement process,” added Delić, who said that in the coming months, Promet awaits further cost analysis and business rationalization and preparations around restructuring.
To conclude, Delić points out that there is still a lot of work ahead, and he hopes that everyone, and primarily the management staff, understands the direction and pace they have to go.
“Whoever doesn’t understand, will understand soon. To resolve all the accumulated issues we need a certain amount of time, but since neither our users, nor co-owners, nor the “Promet” employees have any more time, we must do everything as quickly as possible. The first test, which will show the direction we are going in and at what pace, will be seen at the end of this year,” ends Delić.
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