Public transport

A naked man stopped the traffic during a rush hour of the Sofia boulevard "Bulgaria" in the area of the Textile School minutes before 7 am this morning. He literally sat down on the roadway, reported bTV.

Fortunately, there was no accident. There is a police car and a medical team. They have managed to displace the visually inadequate man on the sidewalk.

Four years and three months after a law was passed regarding strategic and private investments to accelerate licensing for seaplane bases, this market remains on paper.

However, government sources say that in the coming months the final draft of the bill regarding seaplane airports will be tabled in Parliament.

Greek aviation industry professionals are concerned about nasty surprises during the delivery of 14 regional airports conceded to the Fraport consortium this month.

Use of electronic tickets will begin on Athens public transport from June 1, Transport Minister Christos Spirtzis pledged on Monday, despite opposition from the Data Protection Authority regarding the personal details commuters are expected to divulge to be issued with digital travel passes.

Sofia Municipality will pay BGN 3.4M for two public procurement program implementations for integrated urban transport and urban regeneration.

The first one will cost around BGN 2.3M and the winner of the competition must provide a system which will count the passengers in public transport. The second one is for 220 new electronic boards totalling BGN 1.1M.

Higher gas prices and maintenance costs for the rapidly aging fleet of the Athens Urban Transport Organization (OASA) are eating away at its profits, the cash-strapped company said in its annual report for operations in 2015.

Anthoupoli station on Line 2 of the Athens metro and Aegaleo station on Line 3 are to remain closed on Saturday and Sunday to allow for the installation of ticket barriers.

Anthoupoli station will remain closed on Monday too.

Peristeri station on Line 2 of the Athens metro and Kerameikos station on Line 3 are to remain closed on Tuesday through Thursday as part of ongoing work to install ticket barriers in a bid to crack down on fare dodging.

Transport authorities have closed several stations on and off over the past few weeks so that upgrading can get under way.

The rolling strikes that we have been seeing in recent weeks on fixed-line modes of transport in the Greek capital might possibly be legal, insofar as the strict letter of the law is concerned, but they are undoubtedly abusive in essence.

Fare dodging and repeated strikes and work stoppages by employees of the Greek transport system are costing the state millions in lost revenues.