You may not get to Bratislava by suburban bus on Monday! – TVNOVINY.sk

In suburban bus transport in the Bratislava region, passengers will have to reckon with significant connection outages on Monday (November 15). The chairman of the Bratislava self-governing region (BSK), Juraj Droba, informed on the social network that in the worst case scenario, there will be a failure of up to 30 percent of connections. With the provision of regional transport, a new carrier, Arriva, will start on Monday, which informed that the restriction will apply to approximately 50 connections, which will mainly affect the surroundings of Pezinok and Senec. Passengers are begging for patience.

Droba claims that the carrier warned him of possible restrictions during Saturday (November 13).

“The reasons are supposed to be a lack of drivers, a pandemic, quarantine, but also the reluctance of drivers to switch to a new carrier,” he specified. The head of the self-governing region announced that he had asked the carrier to immediately publish the connections that would not operate and to plan the connections so that the outages would affect important connections during peak hours as little as possible. The region also wants to receive updated information on a daily basis. Arriva is to present a plan during the week on how to ensure the contracted transport service as soon as possible. “I warned the carrier that the region would charge sanctions for unconsigned connections. In full,” Droba added.

Arriva has so far announced an outage of about five percent of connections in the first days. László Ivan, the carrier’s general manager, declares that they are working to stabilize the situation as soon as possible. “Customers can get information about current restrictions on the Arriva website, on the free infoline +421 915 733 733, from Monday to Sunday also on holidays or weekends from 6.00 am to 9.00 pm, or via e-mail [email protected],” he added.

The new carrier will replace the existing company Slovak Lines. BSK signed a ten-year contract with Arriva as the winner of the tender for more than 330 million euros. Slovak Lines will continue to operate a bus station in Bratislava, but it will cancel connections to Hainburg, Austria, as well as some school buses and public transport connections.