ArmeniaNow  --  The government efforts in the departing year to improve road traffic and passenger transportation are not unanimously defined as satisfactory, however are qualified by many as helpful in terms of reforms in the field.

Transport and Communication Minister Manuk Vardanyan said a lack of money is to blame for more not being done.

“The financial means we have are not enough, but we have tried to maintain the roads as best as our limited budget has allowed,” he said.

The minister also reported that summer and winter maintenance of interstate and inter-province highways have become more effective.

The ministry tightened the grip over mini-bus services, and, as he says, the increased number of fines that went to the budget, are a proof of that.

“In 2011, 4,900 administrative infractions have been registered against last year’s 3,700, and as a result 34.5 million drams (more than $91,000) versus last year’s 23 million drams (more than $60,000) went to the state budget,” Vardanyan said.

Residents of Armenia and Yerevan in particular mostly complain of passenger transportation and road quality.

Among the reforms of 2011 in this field, the minister emphasized as one of the major improvements the process of easing Yerevan’s traffic load, for which the illegal gathering and departure-arrival areas of public transport mainly located inside the city center.

Nonetheless, this regulaton process has its downsides: things have become more complicated – both in terms of time and money – especially for those working in Yerevan but residing in the provinces in the vicinity of the capital.

Resident of Vagharshapat Artur Grigoryan spends an hour more now on the road from home to work as well as 6,000 drams (around $16) per month more than before.

Head of the Consumers’ Association of Armenia Armen Sargsyan is convinced that the proper bodies are not solving the transport issues because it is more beneficial to them to keep things as they are. By this organization’s study, 600,000 people use mini-buses as their main means of public transport daily and that only in Yerevan.

“If that amount is multiplied by 100 drams (about 25 cents), we can see that it turns into a huge sum [60 million drams or more than $120,000 daily], which is then divided among a few people. That is the reason why they don’t want any changes or reforms,” says Sargsyan.

The same study, however, has revealed that, for example, 71 percent of Yerevan residents would like mini-buses to be replaced by more spacious means of transport with bigger passenger-capacity.

To achieve this the municipality is developing a new strategy, by which due to gradual transfer from mini-buses to prevailingly buses the heavy traffic load would be taken off the capital’s busiest streets (in the center).

If today 30 routes use 350 mini-busses, the new network is expected to increase the number of routes by 16 and the number of buses by 300, at the same time cutting the number of mini-bus routes from 109 down to 75. That, in turn, will result in the decrease in the number of buses by 800.