Doubling cost of travel by Yerevan metro allowed to upgrade its safe operation: Chief Director says

YEREVAN, December 4. / ARKA /. Doubling the cost of a travel by Yerevan subway (Metro) entailed a 40% revenue growth, the facility’s chief executive director, Paylak Yayloyan, said to ARKA, declining to reveal the amount of income.

The cost of traveling by Yerevan Metro was raised from July 2011 from 50 drams (about $ 0.13) to 100 drams (about $ 0.26). The municipality that owns the facility, argued that the old price of a ticket did not cover the real cost of transporting a passenger, saying it was 160 drams.

Yayloyan said also the increase of fare has resulted in the reduction of the number of passengers chossing this transportation means by 20-25%. He said raising the cost of traveling was instrumental in terms of earning more money to upgrade the facility’s safe operation. Yayloyan said the government subsidies to the Metro is 1.7 billion drams a year.

Operated by the state-owned Yerevan Metro Company, the underground transport system was built in 1981 and currently represents the backbone of public transport in Yerevan. Since then, Yerevan Metro has grown from a four-station system extending 7.6 km to 10 stations over 11 km. 

The metro is one of the main means of transport in the capital, with services at peak times every five minutes. In 2011, over 17 million passengers used it. Yerevan, with over a million inhabitants, needs to keep its metro in good working order. Due to lack of major investments in maintaining the network in recent years, the metro’s infrastructure was in urgent need of repair. -0-