The joint public transport tickets and subscriptions are no longer sold at ticket offices within the Bucharest metro system, as the public transport company RATB and the metro company Metrorex recently ended their collaboration contract.

This means the single 60 minute ticket, the ticket including 10 trips each valid for 60 minutes, and the one day subscription which offered access both to the public transport system above ground, and to the metro system, can no longer be bought from Metrorex ticket offices, according to the metro operator.

The canceled contract between the two public transport companies also means commuters will no longer be able to use their RATB cards ACTIV to pay for metro trips, nor use the joint tickets RATB – Metrorex. This came into force as of March 14.

The joint tickets were introduced in 2012 in Bucharest, based on a partnership between the two public transport companies. None of them gave any reasons for not renewing the contract once it ended.

In a later update, RATB has asked Metrorex to delay the cancellation, and promised to pay its debt of RON 17 million - or some EUR 3.8 million on account of the joint ticket sales, which was caused by the "tough economic period".

In an attempt to convince the metro operator to continue selling and accepting the joint tickets, RATB reminded of the 25,000 commuters who use the joint ACTIV cards on a monthly basis and who would be impacted by the recent decision.

editor@romania-insider.com